Polytunnel Salsa
The first supper club I ever went to back in 2014 in London was a South-East Asian and Mexican fusion evening. At the time, I felt like that was a slightly odd combination. But the more I have learnt about cusines from across Asia and Mexico, the more similarities I notice in terms of ingredients, cooking tehcnique and combinations of flavours. This recipe is neither mexican or south-east asian. It is based on using up stuff at the end of the season from our Northern Irish polytunnel. However, it is entirely inspired by the many times in I spent roasting tasty things, over an open fire in Asia (mainly in northern Thailand and Laos) and over a comal in Mexico. Roasting things over a really high heat, so they are blackened and smokey is such an amazing way to add flavour to a dish. Definitely worth the effort.
Polytunnel Salsa
Serves 4 (or just 1 if it’s me)
Ingredients:
Handful of tomatoes
Green chilli peppers (jalepenos or padron or something else)
A green pepper
Small onion or a couple of shallots
Cloves of garlic
Lime juice
Salt
Wash your peppers & tomatoes. Peel your onion, but don’t bother to peel your garlic cloves. Put them all in a very hot, dry frying pan. Turn them occassionaly. You want to get them nicely blackened and starting to soften.
If you are doing this over an open fire, thread all your ingredients onto a skewer and then toast over the fire like a marshmallow!
Squeeze the garlic out of the papery skin and into a pestle and morter (or food processor). Put all the other roasted veg in too. (You may want to chop everything roughly if you are using a pestle and morter).
Use the pestle to create a very rough salsa. Add a squeeze of lime juice (I used about 1/2 a lime for this batch) and good pinch of salt to taste.
Serve with tortilla chips and beer for a Mexican feel.
Or serve with jasmine rice and grilled chicken, fish or aubergine for a SE Asian twist.
You can vary this recipe as much as you like as long as you think about balancing the four flavours of salty, sweet, sour and spicy. I seem to remember adding palm sugar, lime juice and fish sauce as the key seasonings when making something similar in Chaing Rai (northern thailand).
Also, add herbs - chopped coriander or ripped thai basil.
