Grilled Tomato Salsa

Food of the Gods, this stuff is. The recipe as it was originally written came from Top Secret Recipes. I found that the directions weren’t exactly clear or accurate and the ingredients needed a little tweaking. Sometimes you can just look at a thing and know it won’t work, you know.

I have a gas grill in addition to my regular ol’ grill so it’s easy for me to quickly grill things but even if you don’t own any type of grill you can still make this salsa. I’ll give the oven broiler directions at the bottom.

Could I have said grill more in one paragraph? I think not.

Grilled Tomato Salsa

6 medium tomatoes, stems removed (Let’s say if each one were diced you’d have 3/4 c. of tomato. Don’t dice them, though.)
3 to 6 jalapeno peppers, stems left on
1 medium red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (loosely measured)
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbl. white vinegar
2 tsp. kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp. Liquid Smoke

Heat your grill to medium. If you don’t have a grill (gasp!) then preheat your broiler.

Coat the tomatoes with olive oil and place on the grill. Allow them to cook for ten minutes. In the meantime peel the red onion and slice it into slightly thicker than 1/4″ slices. Don’t seperate into rings. Brush both sides of each slice with olive oil. Coat jalapenos with olive oil.

After the tomatoes have been on the grill for the 10 minutes turn them over. By now the skins will be peeling and the tomatoes will be getting a bit mushy. They’re supposed to, so don’t worry.

Now add your onion slices and jalapenos to the grill. Allow everything to grill another 10 minutes. You’ll need to turn the onions once and you’ll need to turn the jalapenos periodically to lightly blacken the skins all around. By this time the tomatoes will be starting to blacken in a few places too, so don’t freak out. If your onions aren’t as soft as you like them then feel free to grill them a bit longer if needed.

Remove everything from the heat. Let everything rest for a bit so that it’s cool enough to handle.

The thing about jalapeno peppers is that you never know exactly how hot they are until you try them. There are also tons of myths on where the heat is. Well, I have news. The entire pepper has some heat to it, but the real heat is in the veins inside that the seeds are attached to — not the seeds themselves.

Pull the stems off of the jalapenos and tap any loose seeds out. Slice the peppers open and remove as many seeds as possible (who wants to bite into a bunch of seeds?) and rough chop them. If there is any skin that’s overly black you can remove that but don’t fuss over the rest.

Add your chopped jalapenos to a food processor* and pulse to puree, then remove jalapeno puree from the food processor and set aside. Don't wash the processor.

Remove the skins from the tomatoes and cut 'em into quarters. Rough chop the onion and add that to the food processor along with the rest of the ingredients excluding the jalapenos and pulse a couple of times. The idea is to have the salsa be a little chunky. Pour the salsa into a large bowl and start adding the jalapeno puree. Add it a little at a time, stir it in real well, taste, and add as much as needed to reach the desired heat level.

* Note: If you don’t have a food processor this can be pusled in a blender in very small batches or you can use kitchen scissors and snip everything up and mix it in a bowl. Obviously the food processor is easiest method but you have to work with what you’ve got.

To make this is the oven: After coating your tomatoes and onions in oil place them on a broiler pan. Place the pan on a rack that has been lowered 6" from the heat source, then broil your onions, tomatoes and jalapenos for 20 minutes. Turn the veggies over halfway through broiling so that they'll brown (or blacken, as will be the case for the jalapenos) evenly.

Once everything is done proceed with the recipe as written.

You can serve this warm or chilled. I prefer it warm, and most restaurants around here are now serving it warm also. It really brings out the flavors.

Variation: Omit jalapenos and Liquid Smoke. Puree a few chipotles in adobo sauce and add them a little at a time to your salsa until you hot it up enough.

Store this in the refrigerator for up to five days or freeze it. This makes some of the best damned salsa you’ll ever eat. And you can say you made it yourself.