Ruminating about these summer treats got me to thinking about today’s
first takeaway:
High school friend and novelist Terry Hughes suggested a tasty salsa
dish for ManChow. Here in Southern California it’s pretty much summer year
‘round, though with hot house vegetables in most supermarkets, maybe not such a
long stretch for colder climes, either. Anyway, to my mind salsa has always
been a summer dish.
In his first novel, "Burning Paradise," Terry’s fictional hero is an arson investigator who's tasked with solve a series of deadly blazes in a small California seaside town, so Terry knows a
little something about heat.
I’ll let him explain his recipe in a moment, but thinking about this savory drove me to the dictionary to find the difference between salsa and pico de
gallo.
Salsa (“sauce”) is usually blended or crushed, tomato-based,
spicy yuminess used as a dip or condiment. Think of all the Mexican restaurants
you’ve been in that serve tortilla chips and little stone bowls of hot, red goodness
as soon as you sit down. The red sauce (salsa roja) you’re typically served is the most common, though you can also ask for the green stuff (salsa
verde). If you want to get all connoisseury, there are dozens of salsas,
including the ever delicious guacamole. Wikipedia has an
excellent article on the various salsas native to Mexican cuisine.
International forms of this are also used in Italian cuisine as well as other countries.
Pico de gallo (“rooster’s beak”-- bleh!), also called salsa
fresca, is uncooked and not as liquid as salsa roja or verde. It consists of
fresh, chunky ingredients that you can eat as a side dish or spoon onto a
variety of foods without smothering the flavors.
In some areas pico de gallo can also become a fresh fruit salad. Who
knew?!
So, Terry, I love you man, but what you have here is pico de gallo, not salsa
roja.
CALIFORNIA
SALSA
(Given to Terry by his third ex-mother-in-law, from an
old Hispanic family treasure handed down over generations. He made some
changes to supercharge it):
Ingredients
Pour one glass of beer or wine. Drink.
Fresh Roma tomatoes
They should be like women, the fresher the better; firm, but not too firm;
soft, butnot too soft.
Fresh leaf cilantro
This looks like parsley, but that's for Italian dishes; cilantro is what makes
it Mexicano.
Green onions
Slender green stems connected to white bulbs, usually sprinkled on
baked potatoes.
Fresh garlic
If
you use garlic powder, you will be sent to the end of the ManChow line.
Real lemons or limes
Fresh jalapeno peppers
Hal-ah-pain-yo, not
haul-uh-peen-yo. If you’re going to be muy autentico,
use the right
pronunciation, yo!
(NOTE: The amount of each ingredient is entirely up to you; taste and experiment)
Cooking Instructions
Wash all ingredients thoroughly. Cut the stem buttons
out of the tomatoes and slice and dice. Cut off the thick cilantro
stems and pull the leaves from the main stems. Chop the green onions (a little bulb, more stem).
Crush the garlic and mix all these ingredients in a bowl. Squeeze in the
citrus juice.
Grill the peppers over a flame. Use your
barbecue, your gas cook top, or if you only have electric, a cast iron
frying pan. Burn the peppers. This is one of the few recipes in the world
that encourages you to burn your food, but ManChow is not for sissies.
Cut the stems off the peppers, split them open lengthwise
and remove the seeds. Warning, they’ll be hot ... and when handling jalapenos do not scratch around
your eyes or run off to pee without washing your hands first! If you do, you
will experience muy autentico pain-yo.
Oh, and wash your hands afterwards, please, for the rest of us.
Scrape the meat off the inside of the peppers and add to the
other ingredients; mix and taste. If there’s not enough heat, prepare
another pepper, throw it in and taste again. If the heat is right, salt to
taste, mix again and serve or refrigerate. If it’s too hot after the first
pepper, leave this blog immediately.
Reward yourself with another glass of beer or wine. Serve
your salsa with tortilla chips, hamburger, hot dogs or whatever you think goes
with salsa. Most of your friends have probably never tasted fresh homemade
salsa. They will bow before you.
Don’t be afraid of the produce section! Sure, you know where to find toilet paper, TV dinners and the Alcohol aisle, but real men can squeeze melons with the best of them! If you’re new to all this, ask an attractive woman for help.
The key word is not ask … it’s “attractive.” Remember the universal ManRuse: Appear ignorant and confused (in some cases, this may not be especially hard). Women love to help men who are lost in grocery stores. They’re in their element; they’re the hunter-gatherers and we the prey!
You'll also find a better quality woman than those passed out in your local bar.
Bon appêtit!
(NOTE: I found all of Terry’s ingredients in my 99 Cent Store, plus most of the below)
For dessert, something extremely simple and tasty. While you’re out,
buy a bunch of seedless white grapes, a jar of fudge ice cream topping, container
of plain yogurt and a box of toothpicks. When you get home, wash the grapes
well, shuck them off the stem and freeze them in a 1 gallon Ziploc bag.
After a tasty ManChow meal with your girlfriend, dump the frozen grapes into
a bowl, nuke the fudge a little, pour it into a smaller bowl and the yogurt into
another. Serve.
Stab the grapes with a toothpick and dip in the topping of your
(and her) choice. I’m betting she’ll go for the yogurt but ya never know…
Love frozen grapes!!
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