Suzi's Blog

Tomatillo Temptations Part 2

by Brian on March 9th, 2010 in Cookbook Reviews No Comments

Recently I blogged about tomatillo salsa, that vibrant, green salsa that you may have sampled with chips or had adorned on top of a main course. Tomatillo salsa offers that great versatility. You can find my earlier blog at: http://www.cookingbythebook.com/blog/recipes/tomatillo-temptations-part-1

Tomatillo salsa can be made with raw tomatillos, cooked ones and canned. Last week, Part 1 offered a raw salsa from Rick Bayless. Today, in Part 2, there is a cooked tomatillo salsa again from Rick Bayless. This is the perfect opportunity to contrast two recipes: same author, nearly the same ingredients, and just one shift in the preparation technique. The modest differences in ingredients are the addition of a small amount of onion, increased garlic and decreased cilantro.

The real shift, of course, is that in this recipe the tomatillos and garlic are pan roasted before being added to the blender with the chiles and cilantro. The onion below is not blended but added only after the salsa has been created.

How about the results? What do you get for roasting the tomatillos? There are important differences in the two salsas. This cooked version has a darker color, is more viscous, and offers you a more complex flavor. I personally like the raw tomatillo salsa for its simple tangy flavor which is the perfect match for chips and margaritas. The cooked salsa has multiple flavor levels that, like a complex wine, reveal themselves over time. This cooked salsa is the one for your main courses: chicken, beef, and shrimp.

Like the raw version, this cooked salsa can be refrigerated and enjoyed for several days.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Yield: 1 ½ cups

Ingredients:

4 medium tomatillos, husked, rinsed and halved
2 large garlic cloves
⅓ cup cilantro, loosely packed, roughly chopped
½ small white onion, finely chopped
salt
water

Preparation:

Set a large (10-inch) nonstick skillet over medium-high heat (if you don’t have a nonstick skillet, lay in a piece of foil). Lay in the garlic and tomatillos, cut side down. When the tomatillos are well browned, 3 or 4 minutes, turn everything over and brown the other side. The tomatillos should be completely soft. [Brian note: using tongs you will know immediately when the raw, hard tomatillos have truly softened.]

Scrape the tomatillos and garlic into a blender or food processor and let cool to room temperature, about 3 minutes. Add the chiles, cilantro and ¼ cup of water.  Blend to a coarse puree. Pour into a salsa dish and thin with a little additional water if necessary to give the salsa an easily spoonable consistency.

Scoop the chopped onion into a strainer and rinse under cold water. Stir into the salsa. Taste and season with salt, usual about ½ teaspoon.

Source: Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless

Tomatillo Temptations Part 1

by Brian on March 2nd, 2010 in Cookbook Reviews, Recipes No Comments

My first taste of green salsa was at a now long-gone New York City restaurant. The food there was good, the salsa amazing. I use to buy that green stuff by the pint and bring it home.

The core ingredient in green salsa is the tomatillo. Often referred to as green tomatoes or Mexican tomatoes, the tomatillo is not a green tomato. It’s only distantly related to red tomatoes. Now available year round in the produce section of your market, they come with a distinctive leafy husk and vary in size. Eight medium size tomatillos should tip the scale at about one pound.

And they come canned, both whole and crushed.

All of which means, that tomatillo salsa can be created in many variations. I just went through a dozen Mexican cookbooks and found 20 very different recipes. All the recipes use tomatillos, some garlic, and some cilantro. After that the fun begins. Recipes call for adding different chiles, sugars, juices and spices. The proportions used for, say, onions vary from 2 tablespoons to one full onion.

With that variety, you can generate an entire family of green salsas. Here’s the big dividing point: what do you do with the the tomatillos? Use them raw, cook them, or open a can? Everything ends up in a blender anyway, but the different methods do yield distinctive flavors.

This first recipe, from the wonderful book Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless, is the easiest. Raw tomatillos, garlic and cilantro plus some chili heat are put in a blender and voila. You’re soon done.

This salsa is surely the freshest. You can refrigerate and use it for several days. One thing you need to know about tomatillos, as you pull of the husk, your fingers will feel sticky. Tomatillos are rich in pectin. This Bayless recipe is absolutely thin when it comes out of the blender. After a day in refrigerator, the pectin has kicked in and you have a paste, not a salsa. Just mix in some water, whisk, and you can restore the salsa to any consistency you desire.

As for that long-gone Mexican restaurant where I used to buy salsa, I worried about what would happen if it ever closed. I experimented and came up with my own version which is a pretty good match. Later this week, I’ll give you that tasty, easy recipe using canned tomatillos.

But first, let’s start raw and simple. Find that bag of chips, open a Mexican beer, and enjoy.

Fresh Tomatillo Salsa

Yield: 1 ½ cups

Ingredients:

4 medium tomatillos, husked, rinsed and quartered
1 large garlic clove
2 serrano or 1 jalapeno chile, stemmed and roughly chopped [more or less heat to suit you]
2/3 cup, loosely packed, roughly chopped cilantro
salt
water

Preparation:

Place the tomatillos, garlic, chiles and cilantro in a blender or food processor.  And ¼ cup water and a generous ½ teaspoon salt.  Process to a coarse puree. Pulse if necessary to first process the tomatillos. Add small amount of additional water if necessary.

Source: Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless