This recipe is well over 20 years old and follows the one posted earlier today for Green Salsa. My partner and I at the time decided to document his salsa recipes for my blog at the time and so we set out to Kensington market and bought a couple of giant bags of dried peppers and tomatillos and spent the afternoon and early evening making salsa.

This is the sister recipe to green salsa. This salsa can also be used in pretty much any recipe and has a little more sweet and less acidic taste than the green salsa. It is easier to make because red tomatoes are more available (note: there are tomatillos are on the pan in the picture below, but they are not a requisite for this recipe).

Ingredients

• 5 medium ripe red tomatoes (this recipe used heirloom tomatoes)
• 5-6 fresh serrano peppers (or jalapenos if you can’t find serranos)
• 1/2 onion (of your choice, this recipe used 3 shallots)
• 1 cup of fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt
• 1 teaspoon of oregano
• 2 tablepoons canola oil
• 1-2 cloves of garlic (optional)
• 1-2 dried arbol peppers (optional)
• 1 cube of vegetable stock (optional, only if tomatoes are not very ripe)

1) Using a flat, thick pan (could be a wok, cast iron pan, etc that you are willing to stain the surface. DO NOT USE TEFLON), bring the pan on high with NO OIL

2) Wash tomatoes and peppers. Peel and cut onion into quarters, placing half the onion, all tomatillos, whole peppers and tomatoes on the hot pan.

3) As with the recipe for green salsa, you will need to burn them on the pan, turn them once while burning them. As an alternative, you can boil the tomatoes in a pot of water if you prefer not to boil them.

4) Remove the peppers first before they become too burnt and place in the blender. When the other ingredients are ready, place in the blender. Do not add water (as tempting as it may be).

5) In addition to the tomatoes, peppers, and onion, put cilantro, salt, oregano, and optional ingredients. Blend to your preference of consistency – don’t blend too long or it will be too liquid.

6) Heat oil in a large stock pot on medium. Add the contents of the blender and let boil for 5-10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let thicken in pot.

7) Taste your salsa – if it’s too spicy feel free to add more tomatoes. The reverse, if it’s too mild, this is the time where you could add more peppers, but you need to return at least a portion of the salsa to the blender.