Tuesday 13 April 2010

Salsa Borracha - Drunken Salsa

Two of the things that bug me slightly whenever I get a Salsa Mexicana, is that often the knife skills on display are quite crude and sometimes the salsa has been allowed to become quite dry while sitting around.

I have seen a couple of recipes for a salsa moistened with beer (sometimes even tequila, which I will probably try at some point in the future) and it seemed like an interesting thing to try. I was determind however to be as precise as possible in preparing everything, so as to arrive at pieces as small and as uniform as possible.

Quite a few recipes call for the tomatoes to be grilled first as they would be in a Salsa Cocida but what I was aiming for here was a regular Salsa Mexicana simply moistened with the beer.

I used a couple of plum tomatoes, skinned and seeded and finely chopped; less than half of an onion, again finely chopped; a couple of jalapenos; a clove of garlic and a scant handful of finely chopped corriander. I added salt, some oregano and a touch of crushed, toasted cumin. to that I added a fair quantity of Pacifico beer.

The salsa does well after some time for the flavours to meld.

I like it a lot. The beer gives the salsa a undertone of maltyness. It is very nice eaten cold on a tostada (which apparently is very unmexican - if the NYT is to be believed) but it also goes well with tacos. The time taken to seed the tomatoes and in chop everything as small and uniform as possible was well spent - as well as being more manageable the taste was subtler and the tiny pieces of tomato looked like little jewels.

I have fallen into a habit of preparing only a Salsa Cocida and a Salsa Verde and these are the two I generally have on hand in the fridge - I think that needs to change!

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