A few weeks ago, my friend invited me over for movies.  Over movies, there is wine, chips, and mango salsa.  Of course my taste buds get all snooty, declare the salsa foul, and suddenly I am determined to make my own.

I managed not to declare the salsa foul in the middle of the movie, attempting to save some grace.

But that didn’t stop me from trying to make mango salsa.  I note that mexican tomatoes are on sale, and chilean mangoes are on sale.  Still not cheap but after months of no good tomatoes I like this idea.

I started with this:

  • One mango, two weeks old now because I’ve had this plan for a while
  • Three tomatoes, only one week old
  • A bunch of cilantro
  • Dried arbol chilies.  Apparently I used all my fresh chilies in a curry or something.  I know I bought fresh chilies for this purpose.
  • Some garlic
  • A lime
  • Half an onion

I threw two tomatoes, some of the cilantro, and some water in the blender (it gets unhappy if there is no water with the food).  Meanwhile, I put the chilies (I used about 10-15?) and the garlic (four cloves) in a pot with some water (very little, just enough to cover) and started boiling it.  The other tomato I diced and tossed into a large bowl.  Some of the cilantro leaves I saved, also chopped, and put into a bowl.  The blended goop also went into this bowl.  After the dried chilies couldn’t be called dried any more, they went into the blender, with the water (which there wasn’t much left at this point).  I learned from previous experience that boiling liquids in a blender will blow up in your face so I added a little water, the lime, about half the half-onion and blended that up too. The rest of the onion was chopped fine, and went into the bowl.  The mango I also chopped up–I read somewhere you should use a less ripe mango, but now I think that is because if it’s perfectly ripe you’ll munch the mango rather than make salsa.  The parts that couldn’t get chopped either went into the blender or into my mouth.  I threw a bunch of mango chunks into the bowl (while saying “one chunk for them; one chunk for me”) and at the very end I was squeezing the mango pit over the blender.

All this went into a bowl and stirred up to make it look like salsa.  One taste and I quickly realized it wasn’t working.  So I added:

  • Salt
  • Vinegar
  • A can of tomato paste
  • More onion
  • Cumin
  • A little chili powder
  • More salt

All this made it taste much much better.

A few things learned:

  • I know blenders like watery things, but salsas shouldn’t be quite so watery.  While I think I’ve got a good consistency, it was a battle, and I really should get a food processor.
  • Salt.  I know you are planning on putting salty chips in this, but you still need salt in the salsa itself.  More than I might initially suspect.
  • More tomatoes.  Three just isn’t enough.  Also, chop more, blend less.  The cilantro I think I got the right chopping/blending ratio (most stems blended, most leaves chopped).  I can’t wait for tomato season to come in full swing.
  • More mangoes.  I can’t call this mango salsa, which was the original intention.

I’m going to try this again at some point, though I’m not sure if I’ll make it a front page post or just edit this one or pretend I never did.

3 Responses to “Salsa”

  1. 9:22 am, 10 May, 2009 р.
    Steel Phoenix says:

    I’ve been having a similar urge to make mango salsa. Maybe we will have to try this when you are here.

    I’m saying we start with fresh mangoes, the old ones are too sweet. Habaneros to keep things orange and interesting, and of course no onions. It sounds to me like you have added some overpowering flavors to what should be a subtle and unusual theme.

    I’ve found that the magic bullet doesn’t seem to need much if any water to blend stuffs, and it is small and contained enough that you can shake it while it blends.

    I often just let the salsa sit for 15 minutes and then use a spoon to drain off the excess tomato and chili juice. I freeze it for future cooking projects. In this case, you could use it for blending next time instead of water.

  2. 8:23 pm, 10 May, 2009 р.
    Raven says:

    I have found, with my mango salsa recipe, that I don’t need water if I plan a little ahead of when I want to eat it and let the stuff all sit together in the bowl. But I think that also probably requires fresh chiles. And lime.

  3. 9:13 am, 11 May, 2009 р.
    stanza says:

    @Steel

    I don’t actually think we should try again just yet, because I suspect the missing ingredient is tasty tomatoes, which are sadly not yet in season. Perhaps the early tomatoes will be available by the time I get to your house, but I think it will still be too early.

    I will try again in late summer when there are more tomatoes than eaters.

    @Raven

    There were meant to be fresh chilies in there. I had done the shopping for it a week/two weeks prior, and I think I used them all up in the meantime. I had done the “one of each” pepper shopping, and more interesting peppers are starting to appear.

    Regarding the water/blender, I actually think it came out perfect. I could have pulled some of the water off at the end if I wanted to, but then it would have been closer to marinara consistency. Like I said, more chunks, less blender.