A Tale of Three Salsas

A tale of three salsas originally started out as a tale of two salsas. Last week I had some tomatillos and decided to make salsa with them. I used half to make a roasted tomatillo salsa and the other half to make a raw tomatillo salsa.

The roasted tomatillo salsa was the best of salsas and the raw was the worst of salsas (actually it wasn’t the worst…it was okay but I loved the roasted one). The boys didn’t help me make these but I wanted to share it because like I said I really enjoyed the roasted salsa.

If you aren’t familiar with tomatillos they look like green tomatoes and they have husk on them. When you peel off the husk the tomatillo is a little sticky so you rinse it until it’s not sticky anymore.

To make the roasted tomatillo salsa you put your tomatillos and jalapenos in the broiler and roast them until they are nice and dark. You should turn them over halfway through roasting. I had mine roasting for about 8 minutes. If your oven is anything like mine they will go fast…when mine were done they were pretty black but I was okay with that. I should have taken a picture of them after I took them out of the oven but I didn’t…I did however take one when I first put them in there.

I had six tomatillos so I used three for each salsa and half of a jalapeno. Once the jalapenos and tomatillos are roasted you just put them in the food processor with a little bit of water. I used about 1/8 cup of water for mine. Once you’ve got them all pureed in the food processor you can put them in a bowl and stir in some diced onion and add salt and pepper to taste. Here is my final product:

Again, I really enjoyed this salsa. I didn’t put in many onions but I probably could’ve added a bit more because I really liked the flavor that they brought to the salsa. You can also see the burnt bits and I personally liked that. Roasting the tomatillos and the jalapenos gave them a really nice flavor. I also like the fact that it’s still warm when you’re done making it.

Onto the second salsa…the raw version. I was going to do the same thing that I did with the roasted salsa except without roasting but decided that I wanted to do something different so I followed a recipe from Bobby Flay. For his recipe you chop half of your tomatillos and then cut the other half in halves.

The tomatillo halves go in the food processor with some lime juice and the chopped ones go in your bowl with the onion and jalapeno. Once the tomatillos in the processor are pureed you add that to the bowl as well and mix it up. You then add olive oil, honey (I actually used agave nectar), salt, pepper, and some cilantro.

I may have liked this salsa better if I hadn’t made the other one first. Using the tomatillos raw gives the salsa a different flavor, the sourness or bitterness comes through more this way.

The third salsa that I decided to make was a mango salsa. I was planning on using the mango to make a mango poppyseed dressing but then decided to go with a salsa instead. So, I looked up a recipe for it. Basically I chopped up my mango, a half of a cucumber, some onion, a half a jalapeno again, and some cilantro. I mixed this all together with lime juice, salt, and pepper.

This one was good, not the best of the three, but it was good. Here is a picture of all three of my salsas together:

I’m sure you can tell by the picture that the roasted tomatillo salsa was my favorite; it was almost all gone by the time I took this picture. If you’ve never made it before I encourage you try it. It’s not only delicious but it’s also simple to make. If you do try it, let me know what you think.