Salsa Verde - so easy, so good

[lillypaddle]

INGREDIANTS

▢3 tablespoon of chopped onion
▢1 clove of garlic
▢2 or 3 jalapeno peppers if using serrano peppers use 1
▢Salt to taste
▢About 3 cups of water to cook the tomatoes and peppers.
▢4 tablespoon Chopped Chilantro Optional

INSTRUCTIONS

In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Add the pepper and tomatillos, simmer, uncovered, for 12-15 minutes.
Drain, reserving ¼ cup water of the liquid.
In a blender, puree the peppers, tomatillos, garlic and chopped onion, the cilantro if using, then add the reserved liquid if needed to get a saucier texture.
Transfer to a bowl and add salt to taste.
This sauce can be refrigerated for up to 3 days and can also be frozen.

NOTES
This recipe makes 2 cups of salsa verde
In some places, fresh tomatillos are not available. You can buy canned Tomatillos as an option.
Chopped cilantro is an excellent addition to this sauce; it could be added to the final process in the blender, or at serving time.

https://www.mexicoinmykitchen.com/salsa-verde-recipe/#recipe

ETA: I've seen posts here that mention how expensive tomatillos are. They were 25 cents each when I bought them yesterday at kroger. Just FYI.

[imaginary girl]

1. Am I overlooking how many tomatillos to add? I don't see that info. Nt

[lillypaddle]

4. recipe calls for 6

but size, as usual, makes a difference. I made it with 4 because they were bigger than most tomatillos I get.

[imaginary girl]

6. Thanks! Nt

[northoftheborder]

2. Original recipe has amount of tomatillos

Original recipe has the pepper amounts reversed - follow lilypaddle instructions on that.

[Warpy]

3. Red or green?

That's a question in restaurants here in NM that flummoxes tourists. It refers to the salsa. I love them both.

Green chile salsa here has as many recipes as there are cooks, but we use the big chile peppers grown in the state. While it can vary from place to place and from growing season to growing season, it's typically just a little hot, hot enough to prevent food from tasting like airline food due to the altitude. I find the freshly roasted green chile on a saltine to be pure heaven, no other seasoning needed.

Red chile is made from the dried pods that are ground and cooked. It's usually a little hotter than green, mostly because its nearly impossible to eliminate the seeds. It is a bright red, smooth, thick sauce.

NM green chile sause: https://www.newmexico.org/things-to-do/cuisine/recipes/green-chile-sauce/

NM red chile: https://www.newmexico.org/things-to-do/cuisine/recipes/red-chile-sauce/

*****Note to the uninitiated: do NOT use canned or jarred chiles, they will not work. If you're far enough away that you can't get frozen green chile at the supermarket, get the big Anaheim or Big Jim chiles. Blister the skin by broiling or toasting over a gas flame, then put them hot into a bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Wait 20 minutes or so and the skins will be easy to slip off. If you can resist eating them as is, go on to the green sauce recipe.

The sold the big California green chiles even in the Boston 'burbs, so most big supermarkets should have them now.

[lillypaddle]

5. Thanks for the links

I almost exclusively use serrano peppers as I really love heat in my salsa. I also make a tomato salsa with serrano, onion, cilantro, garlic, salt, and a splash of white vinegar. I don't cook this one, I like the freshness. Sometimes I will add a tomatillo.

[Warpy]

7. Fellow serrano lover here

In regular fresh tomato salsa (when I can get a garden tomato or two), I use jalapenos for flavor, serranos for heat.

Add whatever you want whenever you can get hold of it. The recipes I posted for the cooked salsas served with everything out here are bare bones recipes and very forgiving.

I was a chile head in Boston. Moving to NM and seeing the dizzying array of peppers, fresh and dried, let me know I'd moved to heaven.

[lillypaddle]

8. Went through Arizona, NM, Colorado

on a road vacation some years ago. Yes, the food was out of this world. Steaks with cheese enchiladas as the side instead of a potato, the sight and smell of the cooking just about everywhere. Yep, I'd say you found at least a piece of heaven in NM. And the art, what's not to love in that part of the country? I have to say, though, that southern Texas has some pretty mean Mexican food, albeit some look down on Tex-Mex. I like it all.

Anyway, I envy your access to such a variety of peppers.

[Warpy]

9. Culture shock came when I looked for pasta

and found only elbow macaroni and spaghetti, that was it at the small supermarket. They had a dozen different brands of tortillas, but that was it for pasta.

So the pasta section and cars with no body rot threw me into total culture shock. I hadn't even seen the jalapeno bagels yet.

[lillypaddle]

10. Have you been to Chaco Canyon yet?

must go.

[Warpy]

11. Nope, trips always fell through

and now I'm blind with a broken body.

I've kept up with the research, especially now that Pueblo storytellers have been a little more forthcoming about why it collapsed.

Despite what some tour guides might have said, it's not a solar observatory. It was a trading center with side orders of ceremony, sports, gambling, and general partying down. That's why occupation was discontinuous, the trading fairs only happened once or twice a year.

Trade came from the coast, from southern Mexico, from the Plains tribes, and the local ancestral people. The extent was astonishing, especially considering the only way to do it was to pile your goods onto your back and start walking.

A faint echo of what it must have been like happens here next weekend, the annual Gathering of Nations. I've never been to that, either, it;s not my party and I'd feel like a crasher.

[lillypaddle]

12. Sorry about your physical woes

bummer.

You sure know a lot about Chaco. Yes, it was long ago that I was there that they were still talking solar observatory. Thanks for the info, Warpy.