Let’s Cooking! = Salsa
February 20th, 2006 by: cheyenne
Here we are in Mexico and eating Mexican food when out and about. Then we bring back veggies and market goods to the boat and make… Mexican food. Or a variation thereof. I’m not sure why but I don’t seem to be terribly homesick for American food, unless you count sushi or pho, which is what we typically ate back in the states.
Breakfasts on the boat consist usually of egg tacos. We actually regularly made these in the states so this is not a “We’re in Mexico and going to make tacos†phenomenon. I don’t seem to get tired of them and we stray from this paradigm only maybe twice per month.
Egg tacos: (Very very simple)
* Tortillas (warmed, of course)
* Scrambled eggs (we do these plain because Joshua is a maniac for unadulterated eggs; scrambled is pushing it by his standards.)
* Salsa.
We’re salsa fiends here and so on very plain days, the salsa variety will consist of some bottled variety (‘hot sauce’ like Tabasco, except we don’t have Tabasco; we have Tapatio’s—my current favorite, a habanero, and a chipotle open), as well as a canned variety. In Mexico you can buy 6oz cans of various salsas (usually mild in spiciness) like salsa casera (cooked mild tomatoey salsa), verde (tomatillo), 5-chili (made with dried chilis and vinegary), chipotle, etc. We stock these things regularly and go through them. If we’re (I’m) feeling fancy, I’ll make some sort of fresh salsa. And I’ll also put together some sort of guacamole, if there are avocados about. And possibly a couple of cabbage leaves chopped finely to sprinkle on top; that’s pretty good. Maybe a lime wedge or two squeezed over the tacos might be nice (keep that scurvy away!!).
** That’s it! Now put them together. The only trick maybe is timing; making sure everything (except the salsa) is warm is a good start. I’m not sick of these yet and we’ve been eating them for years.
When we do not have egg tacos for breakfast, it is usually because we ate an entire package of cookies while drinking our coffee and feel sort of sick. Or else I made oatmeal instead. Oatmeal consumption, however, will surely go down now that we discovered that maple syrup, when not refrigerated, will grow a funky powdery mold over the top and begin to taste funny. Maple syrup had been our preferred oatmeal topping. So sad!
Some salsa recipes
Here are a couple of salsa recipes made from ingredients that are commonly found in the typical Baja market.
Salsa Number One:
1 roma tomato, diced
2 cute little yellow peppers, diced
1 jalapeno, diced (those yellow peppers have zero hotness)
1 green onion, sliced finely
Cilantro, one handful, chopped finely
–Put all this into the salsa bowl, then add:
Juice of one Mexican lime (that means the little kind)
Healthy toss of chili powder
Dash or two of cumin
Salt to taste.
–Nice and mix, nice and mix.
Salsa Number Two, which is VERY different from Number One:
1 or 2 small roma tomatoes, diced
1 poblano pepper, diced
1 or 2 jalapenos (depending upon how hot your Poblano was), diced
Some minced onion, whatever you have around
(You can add cilantro if you have it, but I’ll leave it out just to stress how VERY different from that other salsa this one is)
–Put all this into the salsa bowl and add:
Juice of one Mexican lime, chili powder and cumin (equal parts), one smished garlic clove, and salt.
–Then add one half to one avocado, chopped into cubes. Adding it at the end keeps it from disintegrating into the salsa. However, I do like it to disintegrate so I add it usually after the jalapenos; it gives the salsa a creamy consistency.
These are the peppers I normally buy. The bell peppers don’t keep very long so I generally go with the poblano (that’s the dark green warped one). The light colored yellow pepper is very mild but tasty and the long medium green one is also mild.
