Okay… again I have little to blog about from a tech perspective these days… mainly because I’ve taken a position at Wachovia Corporation, and I can’t talk a lot about what I do. I can tell you, however, that I have begun to craft quality salsa on a regular basis however. Here’s how I am currently doing it.

Take the following ingredients and dice them into a bowl:

1 large Anaheim pepper (this might be called something else, but it’s a larger pepper, long, slim, and light-green in color)
2 – 4 Jalepeno peppers (how hot do you want it to be?)
1 medium-sized white onion
3 or 4 large ripe tomatoes

Dice these as finely as you like, in this order! I have found that if you do the peppers first, it releases the flavors onto the cutting-board, which when you go to do the onion and tomatoes, begins the flavor blending process.

Make sure you use gloves… I found out the hard way.
Then you need to add 1/2 a sprig of cilantro. Some people like to leave the stems, or leave whole pieces two-three inches long, but I don’t like that… I chop my cilantro very fine and only use the leafy part of the plant. If you think your salsa is too hot, you can add more of the cilantro, however, if you do this later, it doesn’t do anything but get slimy and brown… so this has to be a judgement call when you do the salsa.

Next… add a fairly decent amount of salt. This is going to react with everything in the blend and begin to “saucify” it… so that it goes from being a bowl of chopped veggies to actual salsa.

I like to also add some ground black pepper, a little crushed / dried red pepper, a couple shakes of Tabasco, and most importantly, some cumin. The cumin was more important than I thought… I discounted it at first, but it really drives the taste of the salsa to the next level.

I usually put all this stuff into a plastic bowl with a seal-able lid, and then shake the heck out of it for about 5 minutes. Then I stick the bowl in the fridge overnight. The next day, I have some awesome tasting salsa… which I manage to put on chips, scrambled eggs, tri-tip, and a bunch of other stuff. I am thinking of trying my next batch with lime-juice, but I haven’t decided yet.
I have my next-door neighbors, Hampton and Olivia to thank for showing me the light on this recipe… thanks!