Turn up the Heat

Salsa’s saucy reputation ignites
a passion for peppers.

What’s Cooking
By Robrt Pela

To write about salsa is to risk prose that merely describes a lot of chopped-up peppers and onions. Like so many really good things, spicy hot salsa has to be experienced up close. Words, where roof-raising chile relishes go, are fruitless.  

The scarce allusions to salsa in classic literature are a testimony to its uniquely indescribable properties.

It’s probably just as well. If Edgar Allan Poe had written about salsa, he would have cast chile as the inner conflict that plagues every individual. If Tennessee Williams had written about it, he’d probably have described the earnest turmoil that results in combining foodstuffs of different temperaments. Ralph Waldo Emerson would have philosophized about the wisdom of growing what one eats, while Ernest Hemingway would have described the women who prepared hot sauce for their men who perspired out-of-doors, watching a cockfight.

Captains Courageous may not include mention of black bean poblano, but Rudyard Kipling surely knew that salsa is both an affable appetizer and a swell epicurean ingredient. Hotter than blazes or sweetened with cranberries, salsa spices up a tired 
entrée and accompanies a bag of corn chips and a cheesy sitcom with equal aplomb. The next time you’re at a party, count the number of people hunkered near the chips and salsa.

Chile peppers—the basic ingredient in all salsas—originated in South America and were carried to Europe by Spanish explorers. From there, they wandered to Africa and the Middle East, where they spiced food, and were used to treat malaria, colic, and toothaches. In the United States, salsa (Spanish for “sauce”) is rarely medicinal, though in some parts of the Southwest it’s practically a religion.

New Mexico may well be the only place on the planet where people wait with such anticipation for chile harvest. In Santa Fe, the salsa capital of the world, salsa specialists and chile connoisseurs combine Indian, Mexican, and Spanish tastes in age-old recipes that can melt the wig of an unsuspecting tourist. (Most of the recipes collected here are medium-hot; spicing up salsa is as simple as adding more jalapeños. Remember that the longer salsa sits, the hotter it gets. That mild sauce you made early last week might peel paint today.) How hot is too hot is a personal thing, though chile judges and relish gourmets agree: fresh salsa does not mean you made it three months ago and froze it.

In addition to its colorful traditions, salsa is nourishing and can be made anywhere—even, despite what promotional propaganda would lead us to believe, in New York City. And if words can’t do justice to the taste of this hellish relish, they can at least express the joy of consuming it. Wasn’t it Henrik Ibsen who, in Act Four of Hedda Gabler, wrote, “Take the salsa from the average man, and straight away you take his happiness”?

Recipes

Sesame Salsa

Makes three pints

• 2 ½ tablespoons sesame oil
  
  
• ½ cup chopped onions
  
  
• ½ cup chopped hot peppers, seeds in
  
  
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
  
  
• 8 cups chopped tomatoes
  
  
• ½ tablespoon crushed red pepper
  
  
• ¼ cup rice wine vinegar
  
  
• Pinch salt

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Sauté onions, hot peppers, and garlic until onions are translucent. Add tomatoes and cover. Cook until tomatoes are soft, about 20 minutes.
Chop vegetables in a food processor until chunky. Return to saucepan. Add remaining ingredients and simmer five minutes. Adjust seasoning.

Chile Chipotle Salsa

Makes two cups

• 6 chipotle chiles
  
  
• 2 cups boiling water
  
  
• 2 tablespoons butter
  
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
  
  
• 1 cup diced onion
  
  
• 2 13-ounce cans tomatillos, drained

In a bowl, combine chiles and boiling water. Let chiles soak for an hour. Drain. Remove chile stems, then chop finely. In a saucepan, sauté chiles and garlic in butter, about three minutes. Combine chiles, onion, and tomatillos in a food processor until just mixed but still chunky.

Hot Salsa Verde

Makes one pint

• 1 pound fresh tomatillos, peeled
  
  
• ¾ cup chopped onion
  
  
• 1 sweet green pepper
  
  
• 2 jalapeño peppers
  
  
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves
  
  
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
  
  
• ½ teaspoon granulated sugar

In a large saucepan, boil tomatillos for about three minutes. Drain and set aside.
Trim and seed pepper and chiles. Combine all ingredients in a food processor; chop to sauce consistency. Serve immediately.