Salsa Recipe

A fresh salsa is an easy and healthy way to spice up a whole load of meals. You can serve it as a dip alongside guacamole with nachos to scoop it up with, or dollop it alongside grilled or barbequed meats. Really ripe tomatoes, fresh herbs and chilli add vitamins and taste to rice and bean dishes and salsa is an essential accompaniment to Mexican cuisine.

There are as many tomato salsa recipes as there are cooks who make it. Everyone has their own preference: hot and spicy; mild with onion; heaps of coriander; lots of lime juice… the combinations are endless. Try this basic salsa recipe and make it your own by playing with the ingredients until it suits your taste. Remember that the texture of a salsa should be chunky, with the tomato diced rather than pureed, so go easy with the food processor!

Homemade fresh tomato salsa recipe:

Ingredients:

2 or 3 large ripe red tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1 small red onion
2 mild chillies, de-seeded
1 bunch coriander
1 tablespoon lime juice
salt

Chop onion, de-seeded chilli and garlic finely. This can be done in the food processor for speed if you like. Chop the coriander too or add to the food processor with the lime juice.

Dice the tomatoes quite small and mix with the other ingredients, season with salt, then chill in the fridge for and hour or so to allow the flavours to permeate.

To this basic salsa recipe you can add one or more of the following according to your personal taste:

•    1 chopped and de-seeded jalopeno chilli pepper for more heat.
•    Diced cucumber for cool crunch.
•    Mashed avocado to turn it into guacamole.
•    1 tablespoon olive oil for a smoother flavour and texture.
•    Roasted red peppers, diced, for a deeper flavour

To make a fresh mango salsa, substitute mango for the tomato, leave out the garlic and try using mint as well as the coriander.

N.B. It is really important to use fresh, ripe tomatoes for salsa, as a lot of the depth of flavour comes from the tomato itself. You can camouflage a hard, flavourless supermarket tomato with extra chilli, but you can never make the best salsa without good ripe ingredients.

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