Fire Roasted Garden Salsa

It is getting very close to that time of year.  Your garden is at the end, perhaps even been subject to a frost.  Or, your local farmers market is rapidly dwindling in their supplies of fresh tomatoes and veggies.  Time to make one last batch of salsa before you are subject to hothouse tomatoes or salsa from a jar.  We made one last batch with the peppers and tomatoes from the garden.  I always wanted to try a roasted salsa.  So, why not.  Off to the R&D labs we go.

My recipe?  Quite simple.  I took our standard recipe, roasted the veggies and garlic on the grill, then mixed everything up in a food processor and blended until smooth.

First, our basic recipe:

Three Dogs BBQ Garden Fresh Salsa

4 Cups Roma Tomatoes, Diced
¼ Cup Sweet Onion, Diced
2 Jalapeno Peppers, Seeded and diced fine
3 Cloves Garlic , Minced
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 tsp Dried Parsley
1 tsp Cumin
½ tsp Kosher Or Sea Salt
1 Lime, Juiced

So, for the roasting, I prepared a batch of coals and placed them off to one side of my grill.  Then, I wrapped my garlic in aluminum foil with just a touch of olive oil.  I placed the tomatoes on direct heat and I placed the garlic right next to the tomatoes to slowly roast.  The onion was roasted whole with the skin and I stole the jalapeños from a batch of peppers that I was already fire roasting.

As the tomatoes became charred and were starting to burst, I moved them off to indirect heat.  I kept flipping the garlic so that it did not burn.  When I could hear the olive oil in the foil pack bubbling vigorously, about 20 minutes, I placed the garlic on indirect heat as well.  The onion took the longest to roast.  I kept the onion on direct heat for roughly 40 minutes, constantly turning to make sure that all sides were roasted.  Once everything was roasted to my satisfaction, I brought all of my ingredients inside for the final step of the salsa preparation.

First, I skinned the onion.  It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  The outer skin came right off without any issues.

Next, I removed the cloves of garlic from their skin and resisted the urge to eat one whole.  (As an aside, if you have never eaten roasted garlic, you are missing a real treat.  Roasted garlic has a smooth and sweet taste.  Think caramelized onions.  Great stuff.)  Next, I removed some, but not all of the char from the peppers and tomatoes.  Then, everything went into the food processor, along with the salt, olive oil, lime juice, cumin, and parsley.

Next, everything went for a whirl in the food processor until blended.  I chose to stop my blending while I still had some very small chunks left.  Here is the final product.

Overall, I was happy with this salsa.  The roasted veggies, especially the roasted garlic, added whole new layer of flavors to our standard salsa.  There was one negative in my opinion.  I like my salsa chunky.  With this recipe, chunky salsa is not possible.  But, the flavors added via the roasting outweigh my preference for a chunky product.  So, we will definitely be adding this recipe into our salsa rotation for next summer.  Not all of the time, but every once in a while.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill