cook: christmas salsas

I'd been invited to a tacos dinner party. I volunteered to bring a green and red salsa. For the raw salsa, I needed tomatillos, a jalapeno pepper, a serrano pepper, avocados, lime, cilantro (not pictured, but probably 8 stems and leaves--keep the stems as they contain a lot of flavor) and salt and maybe a bit of water.

All of the green ingredients went into the blender except for the avocado and lime juice. Also I had de-seeded and removed the membranes of the peppers to make this a mild salsa; I pulsed the blender in order to keep the ingredients coarse.

 

I love onions in a salsa, and so I chopped and minced what I had in the fridge, a couple tablespoons of red onion and soaked in cold water. I also put it in the fridge to chill more and remove its bite. I then added the avocado into the blender and pulsed again just for 5 seconds.

 

For my cooked salsa, I put a large tomato, cut in half; half a yellow onion; 4 cloves of garlic; a serrano pepper; and a jalapeno pepper on a baking sheet and broiled.

I also brought out dried oregano, coriander seeds, hot smoked paprika, and chipotles in adobo sauce for the mise en place.

I think the vegetables roasted for 15 minutes which was too long as my garlic was mostly burned. I could only add a couple cloves to the salsa. I'll need to remember in the future to remove the garlic sooner. 

I then added the roasted vegetables and generous sprinklings of the spices as well as a couple of chipotles and tablespoon of adobo sauce and a tablespoon of honey to the blender and let it whiz for a few minutes. My red salsa was thick! And so I added another tomato which then made it too thin:( Oh well. And so I added Valentina's to thicken it again.

Tomatillo avocado salsa and Tomato chipotle salsa done! I decanted the Christmas salsas to take to the taco dinner.                     

I also found beers at the Grocery Outlet to bring.

Once at the party, I helped as a sous chef and brought dishes to the table.    

I chopped Romaine and had also brought pickled radishes to which Zan added her newly pickled radish and red onion made just that afternoon.

Jeff had de-leafed the cilantro leaves from the stems, and I decanted my red salsa into a handmade ceramic bowl.

We decided we wanted tomato too for the tacos, and I decanted my green salsa into another handmade bowl to sit next to.

Zan had bought mango pico de gallo at the market which I set next to the bowl of Cheddar cheese I had grated.

I had also grated the Cotija cheese and set it next to the marinated mushrooms Zan had sauteed.

Jeff chopped and sliced yellow onion and red bell pepper which he sauteed while Zan grilled chicken breasts marinated in lime and tequila. And all together the taco condiment bar looked pretty darn impressive. One of those bowls of cheddar cheese disappeared because I had sprinkled it on to tortillas and popped into a 350 degree oven to melt the cheese. And from the kitchen, we plated chicken and cheese tacos, Elote corn, and Jeff's frijoles cooked in a crockpot with onion, peppers, Epazote, and avocado leaves--no ham hock as the other men didn't eat pork. We were starving while guzzling margaritas and trying not to eating too many blue corn chips and salsa while waiting for Markos and Aaron to arrive. But yeah taco condiment bar is a fun way to feed a dinner party, buffet style.