Two Kinds of Salsa

Blenders like this make rad salsa, authentic restaurant style

Salsa in mexican and Eye-talian, means sauce. These sauces are great and I am currently using them for salad dressings, dips, and crock pot stew juice for a pork shoulder.

Here is the low down on good salsa: it is effing simple and should be simple. Generally, there is truly one consistent ingredient in salsa: tomatoes. There are three secondary ingredients that are almost universally applied in combinations of one, two, or three with tomatoes. Here is a short list of notables with these Super 4:

• Pico de gallo: Tomato (fresh), Onion, Cilantro, Peppers


• Tomatillo: Tomatillo (green tomatoes, fresh), onion, cilantro, peppers, garlic and vinegar


• Pace Picante: Tomato sauce (canned), tomatoes (canned), onions (?), peppers (?)


• Traditional hand cut home made: Super 4 + salt + vinegar + citrus

Salsa is very very easy to make and should be made at least 6-250 times per year depending on usage. If we look at what these salsas above and see what they work with we can learn tons about how to make useful salsa.

• Pico is good for chips and cheap shitty burritos. It is also a decent start for ceviche.


• Tomatillo is very diversely popular for everything from enchiladas to pork roasts to rices to chips. Very very useful.


• Pace is about as bad as I can imagine. Pace is the purpose of this post.


• Traditional tastes like what we are trying to accomplish. Almost universal in application.

Knowing the Super 4 and seeing some examples can give you an idea of how salsas can be tailored. I would contend that cilantro is the dominant flavor that people associate with mild salsas, where hot salsas do not really need that much of the Chinese parsley, nor is it missed or noticed. I would also note that some people do not like onions (which makes them horrible food critics, I would say).

Anyway, I have made two salsas in the recent days and here is how and why I did what I did.

Chasing Ruben
For more than a decade Ruben's Burritos has had the best burrito salsa I have ever tasted. Here is my first attempt. I missed on a lot of fronts to match Ruben's, but next time I'll get it closer.

Blend 5 cubed fresh tomatoes, 2 jalapenos, a cubed onion, 10 stems of cilantro, garlic powder, salt, pepper, apple cider vinegar.

Result: too much cilantro, too much vinegar, maybe needs more garlic powder and way more heat. Consistancy was too watery. Appearance was too green. It was fairly rapidly devoured for its high content of delishisness. Changes to come, I think I'll have it in two or three more trys, and then we move for patents.

Chipoltee
Take a few chipotle peppers and add to blender with one onion, one tomato, a cup of water, salt and pepper, and a little cider vinegar. I used this to marinade and then crock for 30+ hours a pork shoulder. People loved it. It was very very similar to the tabasco brand chipotle sauce they sell at the stores.

More salsa to come.