Pantry salsa with canned tomatos, guajillo, morita and habañero peppers
Pantry salsa with canned tomatos, guajillo, morita and habañero peppers
by tardigrsde
1 Comment
tardigrsde
Sometimes you wanna make a salsa and you’re too lazy to go shopping, so all you have for ingredients are what you have in the pantry and fridge.
So here’s my 1st salsa of the new year, my Pantry salsa with canned tomatoes!
Ingredients:
1 14.5oz can Hunt’s Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes I’ve had around for awhile (pantry staple)
2 10oz cans Rotel Diced Tomatoes & Green Chiles that I bought with a coupon on a whim a couple of weeks ago
2 dried guajillo peppers (the last of this staple item, I’ll switch to ancho going forward)
4 dried moritas (a staple item)
1 dried habañero (I bought a packages of these a few years ago during a trip to Food City)
2/3 white onion left over from another recipe
4 cloves of garlic.
The cookery:
Anyone who has read my OC posts before will be familiar with how I put my salsa together.
All the tomatoes were drained and the liquid reserved.
All the dried peppers were toasted in a little avocado oil and then covered in boiling water for 15 or 20 minutes.
The onions and garlic toasted/sauteed in the oil as peppers until I liked the color.
I put a cup or so of the tomatoes and some reserved tomato liquid in the Vitamix with the dried peppers. I started low and slow, periodically scraping down the sides of the blender and cranked it up a bit in an attempt to thoroughly pulverize the dried peppers. I was not entirely successful in that attempt.
I added the remaining ingredients, set the Vitamix to half speed and then pulsed everything until I liked the texture.
The tasting…
After a day in the fridge, I added salt. I split the batch (a total of ~4 cups and put 2 tsp of lime juice in one and 2 tsp of white wine vinegar in the other just to see it if makes much difference.
This is one of my best attempts yet. Bright, fresh, tomato forward. Kinda on the sweeter side. A medium high lingering heat.
It’s also one of the prettiest salsas I’ve ever made. The pictures don’t do it justice, but it’s a nice bright red with a coarse, but not chunky texture.
Lessons:
You can make produce a mighty fine salsa quite easily if you just keep a few staples around the house.
Some canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, a well chosen selection of dried peppers.
Canned tomatoes get a lot of love amongst the ‘Snobs for good reason. If you pick a good brand (Hunt’s, Contadina, Ro-Tel etc.) you pretty much can’t go wrong. They’re picked at peak ripeness and often canned within hours. Some ‘Snobs really swear by San Marzano tomatoes. I usually don’t bother as they’re usually much more expensive that the ones I usually buy.
Unhappily, I ended up with some unpleasant shards of dried pepper…. I’m still learning my way around the Vitamix.
Last lesson… If you want to get serious about DIY salsa, get a notebook and WRITE THEM DOWN as you create them. I started doing this after I was unable to reproduce my best ever salsa.
1 Comment
Sometimes you wanna make a salsa and you’re too lazy to go shopping, so all you have for ingredients are what you have in the pantry and fridge.
So here’s my 1st salsa of the new year, my Pantry salsa with canned tomatoes!
Ingredients:
1 14.5oz can Hunt’s Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes I’ve had around for awhile (pantry staple)
2 10oz cans Rotel Diced Tomatoes & Green Chiles that I bought with a coupon on a whim a couple of weeks ago
2 dried guajillo peppers (the last of this staple item, I’ll switch to ancho going forward)
4 dried moritas (a staple item)
1 dried habañero (I bought a packages of these a few years ago during a trip to Food City)
2/3 white onion left over from another recipe
4 cloves of garlic.
The cookery:
Anyone who has read my OC posts before will be familiar with how I put my salsa together.
All the tomatoes were drained and the liquid reserved.
All the dried peppers were toasted in a little avocado oil and then covered in boiling water for 15 or 20 minutes.
The onions and garlic toasted/sauteed in the oil as peppers until I liked the color.
I put a cup or so of the tomatoes and some reserved tomato liquid in the Vitamix with the dried peppers. I started low and slow, periodically scraping down the sides of the blender and cranked it up a bit in an attempt to thoroughly pulverize the dried peppers. I was not entirely successful in that attempt.
I added the remaining ingredients, set the Vitamix to half speed and then pulsed everything until I liked the texture.
The tasting…
After a day in the fridge, I added salt. I split the batch (a total of ~4 cups and put 2 tsp of lime juice in one and 2 tsp of white wine vinegar in the other just to see it if makes much difference.
This is one of my best attempts yet. Bright, fresh, tomato forward. Kinda on the sweeter side. A medium high lingering heat.
It’s also one of the prettiest salsas I’ve ever made. The pictures don’t do it justice, but it’s a nice bright red with a coarse, but not chunky texture.
Lessons:
You can make produce a mighty fine salsa quite easily if you just keep a few staples around the house.
Some canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, a well chosen selection of dried peppers.
Canned tomatoes get a lot of love amongst the ‘Snobs for good reason. If you pick a good brand (Hunt’s, Contadina, Ro-Tel etc.) you pretty much can’t go wrong. They’re picked at peak ripeness and often canned within hours. Some ‘Snobs really swear by San Marzano tomatoes. I usually don’t bother as they’re usually much more expensive that the ones I usually buy.
Unhappily, I ended up with some unpleasant shards of dried pepper…. I’m still learning my way around the Vitamix.
Last lesson… If you want to get serious about DIY salsa, get a notebook and WRITE THEM DOWN as you create them. I started doing this after I was unable to reproduce my best ever salsa.
Thank you for attending my TED talk.