Salsa translates well to Okanagan kitchens

Salsa makes food dance. It lends a shimmy and a shake in its freshly chopped state, and awakens earthy complexity when its ingredients are roasted, toasted or otherwise cooked.

Fresh herbs such as cilantro married with ripe tomatoes, tomatillos or fresh fruits – with an added hit of lime and a spark of chili – create an orchestra of flavours exploding with colour and nuance, enlivening anything from a simple tortilla chip to a robust stew. Baja-style fish tacos, with their hot battered fish, play a flat note until a fresh and vibrant salsa fresca comes to the party. Without salsa, tacos are just tacos.

In Mexico, salsa’s birthplace, it’s an important cultural and culinary condiment that’s always on the table, changing from region to region, cook to cook, with endless permutations, ingredients and flavour profiles.

For example, a tropical coastal salsa of chopped serrano chilies and pineapple worked sweet-tangy-fiery magic on tacos al pastor, and a salsa of toasted chilies de arbol ground with roasted garlic, salt and oil became a deeply robust accent desired at every meal.

In the Mexican state of Oaxaca, smoked and dried chilies, first puffed up in hot ashes, were then hand-ground in a volcanic stone mortar, along with cooked tomatillos and garlic – a wonderful earthy table salsa that I often recreate at home, minus the ashes!

Further down the road, that same smoky chili was ground with cooked wild vine tomatoes and toasted gusanos (grub worms), enjoyed with hot-off-the-griddle corn tortillas and bracing shots of artisanal mezcal.

Salsa’s dynamic simplicity easily translates to our Okanagan table.

For many of us, salsa conjures up the pervasive combination of fresh tomatoes, chili, onion, garlic and cilantro known as salsa fresca, salsa Mexicana or pico de gallo. With all the ripe varieties of tomatoes showing up at our farmers markets right now, and perhaps in your own garden, there’s no better time to create your own fresh salsa.

To make your own, ripe tomatoes are key. And as most recipes will tell you, Roma tomatoes are the perfect choice, as they hold their shape when chopped and don’t exude a lot of water as field tomatoes do.

A little ripening tip is to leave tomatoes on the counter, not the fridge, to properly ripen them and to develop maximum flavour. It works like a charm.

Another tip for success is to hold back on the raw onion. It can overpower and throw a salsa out of balance. The same goes for garlic. You want the flavours to sing but never offkey. Whether purple, white or yellow onions, when I’m using them, I soak them first, for around 20 minutes, to deflame their power. And if you’re chili shy, you can always remove some of the seeds and the inner membrane to tone things down a bit.

For extra depth of flavour, those same fresh ingredients can be roasted or grilled before being chopped, with fresh herbs such as cilantro or mint added at the end. And a little drizzle of fragrant olive oil wouldn’t be out of order here, added just before serving – so delicious on grilled fish or seafood.

If you’re not a fan of hand chopping, or if time is of the essence, you can achieve the same results with a blender or food processor on the pulse setting, to maintain texture.

Another fresh salsa is a salsa verde, or green salsa, that uses tomatillos as the base blended with jalapenos, salt and avocado. It’s a creamy, bright mix that takes the avocado away from its usual guacamole guise, and is delicious on damn near everything, including greens.

Tomatillos are prolific right now, and if you’re not growing your own, they’re readily available at the Penticton Farmers’ Market, and available year-round at many grocery stores.

Related to the cape gooseberry, tomatillos are a green (and sometimes purple) fruit housed inside a papery husk that is removed and fruit rinsed before using.

Tomatillos have a flavour that is tart, slightly fruity and herbaceous, with an acidity that works well in a fresh salsa. That acidity dissipates when the fruit is roasted or boiled for a cooked salsa.

If you grow your own – and believe me they love our climate – and find you have a glut of tomatillos at the end of the season, they can be frozen whole, after being dehusked and rinsed, at the ready whenever a fiesta is in the works.

With fork and pen in hand, and a passion for culinary adventure, Shelora Sheldan, writer, cook and traveller, goes in search of the delectable..