Salsa Dance (You can dice if you want to…)

S (S S S) A (A A A) L (L L L) S (S S S) A (A A A)

Anybody? No? Oh well.

Men Without Hats jokes not withstanding, I thought I’d write for a moment about salsa.

I tend to preface things with “I’m not expert on ___________________, but…” In fact, I think I prefaced this entire blog that way in my first entry. I said something like “I’m not a professional chef, but I love food, and…”

Let me be clear: If I’m not much of an expert on food in general, and I’m not, then I’m downright green when it comes to salsa. (I’m sure there’s a pepper joke in there somewhere. Moving on…) I’ve never even made an entire salsa myself. I’ve helped make salsa. I consider myself adept at chopping vegetables and other sous-chefy things, but I feel like if I made a salsa from scratch with no recipe, it would be a jumbled mess of flavors and textures.

I spent Memorial Day weekend with some close friends of mine, and it all culminated in their Memorial Day-related cookout and hoo-ha shindig, for which I had the pleasure of helping them prepare. So, you know, cookout. Brats, burgers, etc. And summery foods. Pasta salad, fruit salads, and of course, salsa.

We made three salsas, all of which were exceptional. The first was a mild pureed tomato onion and cilantro salsa. We also made a very hot, very chunky tomato, onion, garlic, assorted hot pepper, and cilantro salsa. Finally, there was a mango, onion, jicama, and (you guessed it) cilantro salsa.

I’m not big on mangoes. I don’t hate them or anything, but I’ve never been a big fan. That said, the mango salsa was fantastic. Best use of a mango I’ve ever seen. Also, if you’ve never made anything with jicama, you should definitely check it out. It’s a root vegetable, it looks sort of like an onion-shaped potato, it has the texture of an apple, and a sweet vegetable-y flavor. (“Vegetable flavor” is not very descriptive, but jicama has very little flavor of its own. It’s great for adding texture, though. It’s crisp, almost like a water chestnut.)

As for the things I do know about salsa: Most would say that it’s better to make your salsas a day or so in advance, to give the flavors a chance to intermingle and get all friendly with each other. I’m not sure I agree. There’s something very nice about a freshly mixed salsa that still has a relatively diverse arsenal of flavors. As long as the salsa is reasonably well-planned, and the flavors make sense together, I don’t think there’s a need to let it rest overnight. Just go to town on that bad boy. Dip the chips right into the food processor if the urge strikes.

The other cool thing about that is that you can have your cake —er, salsa, and eat it too. If there’s any left it will have rested, and the flavors intermingled, when you pull it out of the fridge the next morning. Maybe to put in an omlette. Mmmmm.

Also: It’s absolutely essential to be careful when handling hot peppers. They’re small, but they pack a punch. For goodness’ sake, don’t touch your face right after chopping up that habaňero. It’s dangerous. You can do real damage to your eyes and skin. Use gloves if you have them, and wash your hands either way.

I’m definitely putting “salsa recipe” on my list of experiments to try this summer. Right up there with spaghetti sauce and cultivating morel mushrooms in captivity. The outlook on that last one is dubious. As a friend of mine (and fellow mushroom enthusiast) pointed out, smarter men than us have tried and failed.