Fire Roasted Salsa Verde
Because it is salsa season, I ask everyone I talk with about their favorite homemade salsa. “What’s yours?” I asked my daughter, Laura. “My favorite homemade salsa? Probably a roasted Salsa Verde,” she told me. I asked if she uses a recipe, and she said she usually consults one to get started and then just goes for it. She mentioned tomatillos, garlic, and onions. Sounded great. So did consulting some other recipes to get started. I started with Rick Bayless, who always has excellent ideas. His roasted salsa calls for tomatillos, garlic, green chiles, cilantro, onion, and salt. He roasts the tomatillos, chiles, and garlic and adds the onions raw. Kenji Lopez-Alt has a great recipe on Serious Eats. He references a recipe in Rick Bayless’s classic 1987 cookbook where Bayless boils the tomatillos, onions, and chiles, then shocks them in oil and adds fresh cilantro at the end.Kenji’s riff on that recipe calls for roasting the veggies, but he shocks themin oil at the end. Let’s do something like that. Laura-Rick-Kenji. Check. Here’s my version. Roasted tomatillos, garlic, chiles, and onion. Blended, shocked, add fresh cilantro and salt. Simmer for a while and put into canning jars. Hold some out for quesadillas ‘cause it’s what’s for dinner.
Ingredients
- 4 lbs. tomatillos husked and rinsed
- 1 head garlic with the top trimmed off to reveal the corms
- 1 large white onion peeled and cut into quarters
- 4-8 green chilis jalapeños and/or serranos, stems removed
- Half a bunch of cilantro washed, shaken dry, and chopped from the leaves down, stems discarded
- 2 t kosher salt
- 2 T oil
Instructions
- Line a gas grill with foil and turn up the edges just a bit. Line up the tomatillos, onion, and chillis on the foil, and turn the head of garlic top-down. Grill over medium high heat, turning everything except the garlic to get a good char on all sides. Remove veggies as they get the color you want. Turn off the heat and allow veggies to cool a bit. (If you don’t have a grill, line a baking sheet with foil and use your broiler to char the veggies, turning them until you get a good char on all sides).
- Blend in batches with the salt and pour it all into a big bowl.
- Heat the oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the salsa all at once to shock it, then bring it to a simmer and cook for 20-30 minutes, adding in the chopped cilantro about halfway through the cook.
- Pour into hot sterilized pint jars, top with lids, and process in a water bath canner for 20 minutes. Remove from the canner, adjust rings, and allow to cool. Will keep for one year.
Nutrition
Serving: 0.25cCalories: 25kcal
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