Chipotle Salsa
Chipotle is a favorite flavor of mine. For some reason, I didn’t bother to find out what it actually is until I had the opportunity to do some chile pepper research for a customer recently. Chipotle comes from roasted red jalapeno peppers. Yep, that’s it. Bell peppers are in season, abundant and relatively cheap. Chile peppers are just a couple weeks away. So I have been roasting a lot of peppers. It’s very easy, very tasty.
Step 1: Oven to 400 degrees
Step 2: Peppers on broiler sheet (I’m going to recommend the red, but will try our local purples this week and let you know how it goes)
Step 3: Leave peppers in for 40 - 70 minutes. They’re done when the skins turn black.
Step 4: I’ve heard it recommended that you leave peppers in a folded up paper sack, but I find this messy. I just put them, straight from the oven, into a glass bowl. When they’re not TOO hot (I’m not trying to heat up my refrigerator) I move them to the fridge. When I remember, I take them out, and the skin and seeds come easily away.
And that’s it. Great on their own, in sandwiches, some salads and, oh, I promised you salsa:
Butte County Harvest Chipotle Salsa
Blend together:
4 roasted red jalapenos
3 roasted red bell peppers
2 ripe Pyramid Farms tomatoes
1/2 of a small melon (I used one of Rob Montgomery’s watermelons, honey dew is also good, I don’t know about canteloupe…if you experiment, please let me know)
Finely chop and add to blended mixture:
1/2 small red cabbage
1 medium-sized fresh crookneck squash or zucchini from Mike Panzarini
1 of Rob Montgomery’s delicious torpedo onions
1/2 head of Good Faith Farm’s garlic
Squeeze in two of Rebecca Watkin’s unbelievable meyer lemons, a lime or two if you’d like, and chop up a palm full of epazote leaves. I also added some extra ground up dried chilis because I like to bring the spice, and local serranos and cayenne peppers won’t be available for another two weeks or so. I would have liked to add some raw corn sawed off of one of Rob’s ‘silver queens’ but didn’t have any.
Enjoy!
