Salsa Asada (Roasted Tomato and Chilli Salsa)

Salsa Asada is made with roasted tomatoes, chillies and garlic, the flavours balanced with lime juice, salt and sugar. You can enjoy it as a dip, add it to your tamales, or use it to flavour your Mexican Rice, a great side dish.

Salsa Asada - Roasted tomato and chilli salsa

Ingredients:

• 450g ripe tomatoes, halved
• 2-3 red chillis (to taste)
• 3 cloves garlic (unpeeled)
• ½ small white onion, chopped
• Juice of half a lime
• Brown sugar to taste
• A handful chopped coriander

Method:

1. On separate trays roast the tomatoes, chillis and whole garlic until they are starting to blacken. You could do this under the grill but need to watch they don’t burn. In Mexico they roast chillis and tomatoes on a flat metal griddle over hot coals. You can replicate this by cooking them on a barbecue or using a heavy based frying pan and cooking them until blackened. This can make your kitchen very smoky though.
2. When cooled roughly chop the tomatoes, removing the core if you can. (You can also remove the skin if you like but it does taste good!)
3. Remove the peel from the garlic and the stalks from the chilli. Put the garlic, chilli and ½ tsp salt into a pestle and mortar or food processor and bash or whiz into a paste.
4. Add the tomatoes a little at a time until you have a thick salsa.
5. Rinse the chopped onion and add to the salsa along with half of the chopped coriander and lime and sugar, salt and pepper to taste.