While I have not yet travelled to Mexico, I have been to a few cities of Spain. The fiery food cultures of both cuisines which are similar with some delicate dissimilarity speak to me. There is reasonable drama, a whole lot of panache, a human touch and lots of community feeling in their cuisines. At the La Boqueria market in Barcelona, I fought with my immediate urge to cook up a salsa or two. Ideas were popping up like chipmunk heads on television. Below I am sharing a simple yet really peppy salsa recipe.
My food word for this recipe would be hot and happening.
When you go out shopping look for;
Corn
Baked beans
Tomato
Green chillies
Red onion
Lime
Coriander leaves
Garlic
Salt
Sugar
Pepper
Chilly flakes
The recipe would be;
Roast a couple of tomatoes in an open flame until they blacken. Allow them to come to room temperature. Roughly chop them keeping the black skin.
Par boil a cup of corn until cooked yet al dente. Strain and keep them aside.
Finely chop two red onions. Deseed four green chillies and finely chop them. Finely chop eight cloves of garlic. Also finely chop a cup of coriander leaves along with stalk.
Take half a cup of baked beans.
In a warm wok, warm two tbsp of olive oil and drop in the garlic. This flavours the oil and lends it a lovely fragrance. Now the pink onions should be tossed until caramelized. Time for the tomatoes to go in allowing them to be cooked for a minute. Next drop in only half the cup of coriander leaves and toss. At this point I add both the corn and the baked beans. Then I season with salt, chilly flakes and pepper powder. I am more generous with the pepper. When I add juice of one whole lime I also add a level tsp of sugar. Giving it all a gentle toss I flavour the salsa with the rest of the fresh coriander leaves and immediately turn off the heat. This recipe of a corn bean charred tomato salsa is mistake proof and goes brilliantly with nacho chips or quesadillas.
