Salsa!

I think my salsa is finally ready for prime time:

• 6 cups peeled, fine chopped, & drained paste tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups fine chopped onions (I used White Sweet Spanish)
• 1 1/4 cup fine chopped peppers (green and red sweet peppers, mostly green)
• 5/8 cup lime juice

• 1 tsp salt
• 46 turns of the pepper mill on a fine grind (yes, I really did count to 46)
• 1 1/2 large cloves garlic, pressed, plus 1 more clove added at the end of cooking (by "large clove" I mean the kind you get with a hardneck garlic such as German White, where there's only five or six cloves per head. The kind you cut in half to fit them into the press.)
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 T whole cumin, fried briefly until aromatic in a miniscule amount of olive oil, then ground in a mortar & pestle. (The added oil may not have been the best idea I've ever had -- it made the grinding tedious -- so I may skip that part next time. My pan was very dry.)
• 2 T jalapeños, very finely chopped (I used Black Hungarians, one red one black, which came out on the mild side of medium)

To prepare the tomatoes: blanch 30-45 seconds in boiling water to loosen the skins. Peel, core and seed, fine chop, and put in a strainer with a bowl underneath. Leave in the fridge overnight to drain out as much liquid as you can. It's easier to get the amount right if you start with more than you need and make the extra into tomato sauce. I used eight or so large Goldman's Italian American tomatoes, which are very dense.

Add the remaining ingredients, reserving a clove of garlic to add at the end. Marinate in the fridge for a few hours.

Simmer, stirring frequently, until you're happy with the texture (between one and two hours.) Add the last clove of garlic when you turn the heat off.

Transfer to wide-mouth cup jars (these are the best size for dipping the chips,) leaving an inch of head room for expansion when it freezes. (I got seven jars plus a half jar for tasting.) Put lids on and label them, then leave in a draft-free place, spaced an inch or so apart, until they cool to room temperature. Store in freezer. Thaw in the fridge a day ahead of when you plan to use them, and stir when you open to make sure it's fully thawed (buzzing briefly in the microwave if necessary.)

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The first time I tried making salsa, back in 2012, it was a demoralizing experience. I had no idea what recipe to use. There was a lot of variation in what I found online, and I didn't have any recipes where I'd actually tasted the result. I didn't realize I needed to drain the tomatoes in the fridge, and the weather was so hot they got moldy and I had to start over. And for that first attempt, I chose a recipe that's acidic enough to can and store at room temperature, and I didn't like the flavor. It was a huge production -- hours of labor -- which ended in disappointment.

The second try, in 2013, was a bit more successful. That time I used a freezer recipe, and the flavor came out better. But I expected to be able to cook it minimally, and that didn't turn out to be the case. As soon as it got hot it turned watery, and I kept simmering and simmering it, wondering what I'd done wrong, until I finally gave up after about an hour and just put it in the jars anyway, even though it was still too thin.

I didn't end up using it much, partly because it was watery and partly because I had to plan a day ahead to thaw it out. Then I found a salsa made by Culinary Kiosk, a local company that I adore, and I decided to just leave the salsa making to the experts.

And that's how things were until about three weeks ago. When I was cleaning out the deep freeze for the move, I found a couple remaining jars of the 2013 salsa, and decided to use them up. The same day, my kid (who now goes by the name Sherlock) decided to open a jar of the Culinary Kiosk salsa. So we ended up with two jars open at once. Time for a taste comparison.

The first thing I noticed was that the Culinary Kiosk salsa was sweeter than mine (and sure enough, there was sugar on the ingredient list.) It was also thicker -- the consistency of a catsup or a thick tomato sauce -- where mine was chunky and (still) watery (after all these years.)

Then Sherlock pushed the Culinary Kiosk jar away when I offered it to them, and said the one from the freezer was better.

Oh. Okay. Thank you.

That, along with a surplus of unusually dense paste tomatoes from my garden, was all the inspiration it took to get me back into salsa-making mode. And I'm finally satisfied with today's version of the recipe. I might have to make another batch.