We have been blessed with some seriously beautiful weather over the past few days here in Dallas. I took full advantage of this last weekend by spending a lot of time in the garden (which I can’t wait to share recipes with you from the garden’s harvest! There are lot’s of fun things a-growin’). With this awesome weather, naturally we had to fire up the grill, and the first thing that I was excited to make this year was my Grilled Salsa Verde.
Making salsa of any kind is usually pretty easy. There’s no pressure to be exact with all the ingredients – you can just pick some flavors you like and throw them all in a processor together and presto – you’re a salsa chef.
This is an excellent recipe for a mild salsa that works well as an accompaniment to chicken, pork, or just as a good ol’ dip for your tortilla chips. And that’s exactly how we enjoyed it Sunday evening.
Grilled Salsa Verde
4 large poblano chilies
10-12 jalapenos
2 ears of yellow corn
6 medium tomatillos (husk removed)
1 large white onion
7 garlic cloves
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves
2 limes
Salt to taste
Tortilla Chips for dipping
Fire up your grill.
Cut your tomatillos in half and place face down on the grill. Also cut your onion in half placing one half on the grill, and reserving the other half raw for dicing in the salsa. Place your corn, poblano peppers, and about 10 of your jalapenos on the grill- reserving 2-3 raw jalapenos aside to add some heat to the salsa.
Let them all cook for about 10-15 minutes, until the corn and tomatillos become tender, and you get a nice black char on the waxy skin of the peppers. Don’t be afraid of all the jalapenos- they completely change flavor once they have been cooked all the way down. Once cooked, they taste more like a sweet bell pepper than the hot chili we are used to when raw. But like I said definitely save a few raw ones to add some heat back in to your salsa later.
While those are grilling you can mince your garlic cloves and give the raw onion half you have left a rough chop to help it in the processor.
Once your jalapano and poblano peppers are blakened, remove them from the grill and let them set aside to cool for about 5 minutes under a towel. This helpes them steam in their chared skin and will make for easier removal. Once cool enough to handle, cut open to remove the seeds from the poblanos and rub your fingers across the surface to remove all of the black papery skin. This doesn’t have to be meticulously picked off, but discard as much of the burnt skin as you can.
Run your knife along the side of the corn cob to let lose all the grilled kernels. Keep half aside to add to the salsa as whole kernels.
Place all your grilled ingredients in to a food processor with the garlic, cilantro, raw onion, and raw jalapenos, add the juice of two limes and salt to taste. Pulse to your desired chunky consistency.
