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Cooking @ Home: Make your own salsa for your next tailgate party
You can better control the hotness when you make it yourself
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I have it on good authority that football season is back, and with it comes a most time-honored tradition: tailgating. Whether you’re heading down to Kinnick to take part in the Iowa Wave yourself or watching your favorite Monday Night Football team on TV, no game is complete without an array of snacks. And sure, you could always open a jar of salsa and call it a day, but wouldn’t you like to be able to brag a little bit to your friends and family that you made it instead?
I wanted this recipe to be hot, but not so hot as to be inedible. Even so, there are a lot of variables when it comes to the heat of salsa, and a lot of that will depend on the peppers you choose as well as how you prepare them. I’ve put a mix of poblano and jalapeno in because poblanos tend to be milder with an earthy flavor, while jalapenos tend to have a tangy flavor. When picking your peppers, look at the skin. Smooth, taut skin usually indicates a milder pepper than skin that cracked and striated — the more “scarring” a pepper has, the hotter it seems to be.
Before roasting them, we’re cutting them all in half and placing them on a baking tray lined with parchment (things will stick to foil). Here, again, you have another opportunity to customize the heat level if you want. When you cut the peppers in half, you can remove the ribs and seeds if you want to reduce the spiciness. If you want to keep things hotter, feel free to leave them in — we’re blending the whole thing anyway so it’s fine.
Recipe
Restaurant Style Hot Salsa
Prep Time: 10 minutes/Cook Time: 50 minutes
Servings: 4 to 6
Ingredients
1 head garlic
1 pinch salt
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 poblano peppers, halved
4 jalapeno peppers, halved
5 Roma tomatoes, halved
1 red bell pepper, quartered
1 large onion, cut into 8 wedges
1/8 cups cilantro leaves and stems roughly chopped
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 lime juiced
1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cut peppers, tomatoes and onions and place cut-side down on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Cut top off garlic, encase in foil, add olive oil and salt, and crimp foil shut.
Place baking sheet in oven and roast vegetables and garlic packet for about 40 minutes until vegetables have a slight char on them.
While vegetables are roasting, add cilantro, paprika, cumin, oregano, red wine vinegar, lime juice, and salt to blender.
When vegetables are done, remove from oven, add to blender, and blend until desired texture is reached.
Flavor improves considerably once mixture is allowed to cool.
Source: Alex Gallegos
Speaking of roasting, we’re going to up the ante by roasting all the vegetables in the oven. Roasting brings out a lot of flavors in vegetables that there’s no way to get otherwise. In fact we’re going to roast them a little beyond where we normally would; the char on them is going to add some smoky goodness. But it’s also just a few more minutes to charcoal, so start checking your veggies at the 30 minute mark and don’t be afraid to pull them before 40 minutes if they’re ready.
Some recipes call for adding a teaspoon of sugar to smooth out the flavor. I don’t like to do that, first because sugar can draw moisture out of fruits and vegetables (a technique I use a lot when baking and making ice cream) but also because I don’t like to just add sugar to savory dishes if it’s not needed. That’s what the red bell pepper is for in this recipe instead. It’ll bring a little sweetness to the final dish and really balance things out.
Alex Gallegos is an enthusiastic home cook who enjoys trying new recipes and learning new techniques. Find this recipe and others like it at PlatefulsOfFlavors.com
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