Tomatillo Salsa

Is anyone else on a personal life quest to find the best salsa out there? No? Just me? Well that's okay. We'll fall on those swords salsa bowls like the martyrs chips we like to eat.

We've gone through quite a few different salsas in our time, young and inexperienced though we are. Fire-roasted, chunky, filled with veggies, more like ketchup, so hot you can't touch your nose, all shades of green, lime-flavored, now with mangoes, fresh from the garden and restaurant staples. Now, we can add making our own to the list.

Mr. E and I have this back-breaking addiction to lime. Can't get enough, squeeze it on everything to make it taste better (edamame, anyone?), drown it in juice and serve it up. I was singing to the salsa gods when the restaurant I briefly worked at had an amazing enchilada dish with tomatillo sauce- it was to die for. And then I got fired and now we hate them. I found a similar sauce at a different local restaurant and vowed that if THEY could re-create it, I could too.

I'm not sure I was entirely successful, but this salsa was pretty good all the same. I did a quick Google-search for green salsa and came across a Cafe Rio knock-off from Our Best Bites- great how-to there, too!

Green Salsa
2-3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 large onion, minced
4-5 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 green pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno, seeded and membranes removed if desired (and I desire. Always.)
8 tomatillos, husked and quartered or halved
1/2 bunch cilantro, coarsely chopped
1 tsp. Kosher salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 1/2 tsp. cumin
4 c. chicken broth

2-3 Tbsp. sugar (optional and to taste)

Saute onions and garlic in a large pot until fragrant*. Combine tomatillos, cilantro and both peppers in the blender. If things aren't blending very well add chicken stock. 

Pour the tomatillo mix over the onions and add the rest of the ingredients. At this point I transferred to the crock pot to cook for four hours on low- I figured we liked slow-roasted stuff and there wasn't anything particularly raw in the mix, so I wasn't worried about thorough cooking. The mixture turns from a bright shamrock green to a deep Halloween-witch warty type of green and that's good.Serve with chips or on homemade enchiladas but make sure you make extra for your hungry father-in-law because he'll eat you out of house and home. At least he liked it. 

I really liked how much the chicken broth added to the salsa- not an ingredient I ever would have thought of. I think, in the end, there was too much chicken stock or not enough veggies on my end, so it was a little saucy and less chunky. Plus we could have always added more lime. The recipe says the tomatillo is enough, but I say never.

*In making this salsa I cried. Profusely. Mr. E is not an onion eater (of any kind, ever) so I've spent the last two years subbing out onions for radishes- similar texture, sometimes the same bite and not so bad! But I figured heck, it's salsa, you've gotta have the real thing. So in cutting an onion for the first time in 2+ years, that odor hit me like a ton of bricks. Mr. E walked into the room, glared at me and walked out again to leave me in a eye-leaking mess next to that damn onion. Once I started cooking them (and the garlic) it wasn't so bad, but it'll be a while before I try that again.

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