Tomatillo Salsa

14 pints is not enough

Tomatillos are a queer fruit. They hide demurely in their husks until they come of age when suddenly they are splitting all their seams and bursting out like exuberant teenagers who have just discovered music. You expect them to be full of juice and lusty sharp flavor but they are strangely dry until cooked.

Strange cousin to the tomato both belonging to my favorite plant family Solanaceae. Other notorious family members include: potatoes, mandrake root, peppers, deadly nightshade, eggplant, and Angel's Trumpet (Brugmansia).

The skin of the tomatillo is waxy and sticky. Not a tactile treat for those of us who don't enjoy having tacky residue stuck to our skin. The smell of a raw tomatillo isn't particularly enticing. In fact, it has a strange almost fleshy scent. So what made humans decide to try the fruit of this plant which obviously belongs to a family of Borgias? Good question. If I had come across this plant in the wild I would have expected it to be like a tomato. But I would have been suspicious of its likeness to its poisonous kin. Will it kill me? Or will it be nourishing?

Most importantly: will it taste good? If I had decided to risk death and hallucinations to answer this important question I would have been very disappointed in it right off the vine. What on earth leads humans to cook things that don't taste good raw? Dogged determination? Complete stupidity? Someone found out that tomatillos, when cooked, have a very different flavor than when they are raw; that it is pleasantly tart and sprightly. Someone, eventually paired them up with all the ingredients to make it into *an incredible salsa.

This salsa is so good (in my estimation) that 14 pints of it is not sufficient. I intend to use it in many applications. Obviously it's great eaten with tortilla chips. It is also amazing with eggs. I'm eager to pair it with black beans. I would also like to make tomales and use this as a sauce for them.

I will be thinking of the brave person who uncovered this fruits merits all winter long. Cooking without the Solanaceae family would be devastating. I think European food, before the arrival of these south and central American treats, must have been very dull. What would Italian food be without tomatoes? Or British food without potatoes?

The salsa took a long time to prep. I found myself wondering if any salsa could possibly be worth so much effort and drama. Yes: DRAMA. My spouse generously offered to help so I had him cut the jalapenos with the warning not to touch his face or eyeballs until he had thoroughly washed his hands. If I had had gloves for him to wear, I would have given him some.

Sometimes crazy people hear things differently than non-crazy people. Sometimes you need a translator to understand how their ear hears things. For example:

When I said "Be sure not to touch your face or your eyeballs until you've washed your hands" what Philip heard me say was:

"Be sure to touch your face IMMEDIATELY!" Which he did within a couple of minutes. Without washing his hands.

His forehead started burning and he was sweating so the burning began to spread. He washed his face and then dried it with a towel. Which made the burning spread more. So he started to panic. Panic makes us humans do irrational things. Normally, if something you just did to help a bad situation, ended up actually making the situation worse, you would not continue to do it. In a panic you don't recognize rationality. So Philip, in a panic because his whole face was burning, washed his face again! His panic also made him sweat more profusely and this had him very concerned that the pepper burn would soon be in his eyes.

I told him to stop. To just stop making it worse. A spouse, whether male or female, never enjoys hearing this.

The thing is, I should have considered his asthma before setting him on pepper duty. I felt so bad afterwards. He started wheezing which is what he does when he eats food that is too hot for him. It has an immediate effect on his breathing. Guys are notorious for believing that there is some connection with an ability to ingest super spicy food with the strength of their manhood. Very curious that women rarely suffer this same issue. Philip used to be a very typical male in his macho love of spicy foods. However, over the years it became impossible to ignore the reaction his lungs had after he would eat really spicy food.

It's easy for a lot of people to dismiss asthma as an imaginary complaint if they've never experienced it for themselves. If you've never had difficulty breathing you don't worry that you might suddenly not be able to breath. You take breathing for granted. But people with asthma do not have that luxury. Asthma can be life threatening. So it's actually quite understandable that Philip, who started wheezing, might be worried about how bad it could get.

That didn't stop me from wanting to tell him what a delicate flower he has turned out to be.

This all made me wonder what people did to protect themselves when processing large quantities of hot peppers before there was such a thing as latex gloves? I think about these things because they are disposable, made of latex, and will sit in landfills for a long time. How do things like this fit into a "slow" or a "green" life? My inclination is to not use them. I felt the burn on my hands for at least an hour after cutting up just twelve of the remaining peppers. I didn't mind so much. But it really can hurt.

So, was it all worth it? Oh HELL YEAH!! There was a little left over and I tried it. Oh yes! Clearly I need more. Tomatoes might not be as prolific this year but I can do a lot with this tomatillo sauce/salsa. I do want to note that I had had tomatillo salsa from Trader Joe's before and it was nothing to write home about. Very boring. You have to try it home made. I thought I didn't like tomatillos until my friend Lisa E. made some and I tried it.

Go make some yourself!!

*There are many recipes out there. I used the one from the Ball "Complete Book of Home Preserving" but it can also be found in their "Blue Book". The link I've given here is to a recipe by Rick Bayless, a well known chef and author whose specialty is Central American style cooking.
The one thing I see missing from most of the recipes I just saw is lime juice. Lime juice is, in my opinion (and my friend Nicole's opinion) A MUST. If any of you would like me to put an actual recipe for this on my blog here, request it and I shall deliver.