It all started with a trip to Mexico. We’ve been there many times but this one was special. We went to spend a week with our niece Emily, her husband Matt, and son Alejandro who were living in Guadalajara at the time.
They introduced us to some new recipes and wonderful authentic mexican food, which just happens to be one of our favorites. Their salsa recipe was crazy good and the roasted veggies gave it a twist which we loved. We needed one very cool thing to make this at home the way they did... a molcajete.
One day while in town we went to Mercado San Juan de Dios and scored our molcajete (and a sombrero for Chuck, that’s another story) from a local vendor. The molcajete is hand carved from a single piece of lava rock and also looks really sweet in the kitchen.
We would like to thank our friend and “Consultor Mexicano Residente” Luis for his help with this post as well. Thanks Luis!
The recipe is pretty loose and there’s lots of room to play with it. Here goes.
~ Six ripe Roma tomatoes
~ 2-3 serrano chile peppers (depending on size and heat)
~ 6 whole garlic cloves
~ 3/4 red onion
Crank your oven to broil (at least that’s what we do) and roast whole tomatoes, whole chiles, garlic cloves and chunks of red onion. Remove tomato when skins split. Continue roasting other vegetables until dark brown or slighty charred. (If your smoke detector goes off...start over.)
Remove skins from tomatoes and mash in molcajete. Place tomatoes in separate bowl after mashed. Remove skin and stems from chiles. Grind chiles, onion and garlic to a paste in your awesome new molcajete. Add tomatoes to mixture and mash. It’s messy but that’s what kitchens are for, right? Salt to taste. Do whatever you want to it to make it your own, but be sure to raise your glass to Emily and Luis while you are enjoying this super tasty roasted salsa!
¡Salud!
