This was one of the dishes we fixed at Wicked Retahded on that last day.
There wasn't too much to my dishes, but I thought I'd post the recipe for the
Salsa I fixed.
I'd never had a clue that fruit would mix so well with onions until my wife
and I settled down to a dinner at Starliner Diner and she ordered peanut crusted
walleye with strawberry/banana salsa, black beans & rice. The mix was fantastic
and it opened my tastes to the possibility of hundreds of combinations. Since
then I've fixed Peach, Mango and white Onion salad that rocked, a few other
combo salads - but no salsa. I figured that the whole Boston gathering would be
a nice place to try out something new (since, to my surprise, I became one of
the chefs).
The salsa has a nice, fresh taste and tiny speckles of fire.
Get fresh
everything. Don't settle for canned or preserved anything. The salsa will have a
short life - even with the small amount of preservative benefit you'll get from
the limejuice. It's not something you'll want to fix the night before
either. It's a quick fix if you have someone helping you chop.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
First off, you're going to want two bowls, one to serve, and one to mix. We
used a nice glass bowl to serve it, but the mixing bowl should be rather wide,
you don't want to overfill the mixing bowl because that will just mash
everything together when you start adding ingredients. Get something nice and
wide (like a large salad bowl or large mixing bowl).
Clean and then dice the white onions. You don't want big huge chunks of
onion, and you don't want them so small that there's no crunch. Remember you've
got some mushy fruit going into this thing and your onion will provide a nice
crispy crunch - but big onion rings won't go too well on a chip, will it?
Clean and pit the mangos, cut into the smallest bits you can... until the Mangos
are practically mush. You want the juice and the pulp so they don't have to
be in the best shape. They shouldn't stay very chunky. The mangos add the
base flavor to the salsa and if it becomes a sloppy mush when you're through
cleaning ... good! Mix the mangos and onions. You kind of mix it around until
you have a nice, chunky mango and onion slop. It is kind of looks like chunky
mango pudding. If you don't want to take risks just make sure mango mash and mix with the onions...
Chunk or slice the Strawberries in to decent sized bits and add them to the
mix. The strawberries should remain recognizable as strawberries - so don't mash
them too much. Make sure they're mixed in well but don't get too violent. Your
enthusiasm should depend on the firmness of the fruit.
Wash the cilantro and throw away the stems - you don't want those. Cilantro
is like parsley in the fact that the smaller you chop it, the mushier it gets.
What you're going to want is a nice, flakey leaf that will add some good flavor
and a good contrast color for the pink and orange mix. Add the chopped cilantro
and mix it gently, you don't want any large clumps of leaves because it will
make the flavor too strong. Start out by throwing in a handful... you can always add more.
Split and clean the peppers. Get rid of the seeds, you don't want that kind
of fire. Dice the peppers into tiny bits. You want to cut these as small as you
can while retaining a bit of the crunch. The jalapenos are the surprise in this
and they will provide flashes of fire inside the sweet. Without the peppers you
might as well just leave out the onions and make the bland, bullshit fruit salad
that your grandmother thinks is good (remember that shit they used to put on the
cafeteria tray in high school? Don't be a pussy; you want some heat in this
bitch). The Jalapenos are NOT optional. If you leave these out you'll be
destroying the mix. So, go ahead smarty, take a fucking chance and add an extra
pepper - hell, add the seeds if you want. The peppers make this salsa kick ass.
Hell, add a habanero if you think you can take it... but do this, don't get
really creative with it until you make this first batch. Mix the peppers into
the mix, expect to see a nice berry-colored cloud puff up out of the mix and
form in the shape of a skull before dissipating.
Chop the Bananas into medium sized chunks. Don't get slaphappy here and try
to get too creative with them. You and I both know that they will be practically
mush by the time we're done - so don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out
what shape they should be. Get on with it, cut them into small chunks and add them gently to the mix. These add the middle level flavor here. If you don't have these in the mix it won't taste right. Don't put in less than three.
Juice two of the limes (to start). Get as much as you can. I don't think
that you can really have too much limejuice in this bitch. What I would suggest is
this: put in the juice of those first two limes, mix it carefully and taste the
mix. You should be able to tell if it needs more after a bite or two. Add more
limejuice to taste - don't skimp, you bought four fucking limes so you might as
well be generous. You might also add a little salt and pepper if
you're so inclined - but I didn't.
Ok, you're done. Serve wherever and whenever you like. This stuff works on
tortilla chips, or on fish and chicken (preferably pan seared and nut encrusted
or bred-crumb breaded and baked).
Don't let your grandmother touch it.