Recipe: Tomatoes, Tomatillos and First Aid

September 16, 2013

My best friend Natasha dropped off the weekly assortment of vegetables. I had asked her for more tomatoes, knowing I’d be making salsa and spaghetti sauce soon, and she included a ton of extras. She also mentioned added something to the box for my “mystery challenges”… I was intrigued and asked her what it was. She said she’d included tomatillos. They are the ones on the right, still in their husks.

The tomatoes were easy, I ended up making a boatload of spaghetti sauce and a red tomato salsa, but I had no idea what to make with the tomatillos.

Enter my friend, Google.

One of the first ones I found included green olives, which was another staple that I seem to have an abundance of… Rather than searching through a ton of recipes, I went with the first one. After a few Mandy modifications, here’s what I ended up with.

Roasted Tomatillos and Green Olive Salsa (or just Salsa Verde)

1 kg tomatillos, husked

2 garlic cloves minced

1 jalapeno pepper minced

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup green olives minced

1/2 red onion minced

1 cup cilantro

1 lime, juiced

zest of half a lime

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 – Heat oven to 475 degrees.

2 – Spread tomatillos, garlic cloves and jalapeno on baking sheet and coat evenly with oil.

3 – Roast for 15 minutes or until tomatillos are browned and blistered.

4 – Let cool and chop finely, add all ingredients into a bowl and let flavours meld.

I really like this. It’s a little more “gelled” than the red salsa I made, which I actually like. As for what it tastes like, the flavour is amazing. I ended up adding onion, which wasn’t in the original recipe and changed up the pepper requirements. This salsa isn’t hot at all, so even those who are afraid of jalapenos can breathe easy. (Make sure you remove the seeds and veins from the pepper, unless you like heat.)

As for the first aid in the title, after my foray in the kitchen today, I ended up with two burns and three cuts. None of which were from the salsa experiments. I burned myself on the dutch oven I was using as a slow cooker for chicken tacos. (I’m not used to having a pot where I can’t touch the handles or the lid… Note to self, stop being an idiot.)

The cuts were from my attempt at boning two whole chickens, which I didn’t do too bad at, aside from the minor blood letting I imparted upon myself. We (the boy and I) had the salsas with the chicken tacos and I approve of each of them. (Between you and I, since the salsas can’t hear me from the fridge, the tomatillo one is my favourite.)

Lesson of today, don’t shy away from something you’ve never cooked, it just might be one of the best things ever!Slightly cooked and somewhat bleeding Chef-In-Training Mandy

Written by mandydegeit Posted in FoodBlog, Recipes Tagged with first aid, recipe, salsa, tomatillos, tomatoes