Lone Star Salsa

We recently re-discovered cilantro down here after a particularly bitter winter and I went through all my recipes to put it to as many uses as possible. One of them is this wonderful salsa that I got from a friend. It’s supposedly the recipe used at the Lone Star restaurants in Ottawa (maybe further? I’m not sure). Anyway, a friend here who is married to a Mexican and has visited the heartland of Mexico many times tried it and said it reminded her of what she ate there, so that’s saying something.

Lone Star Salsa

1-28 oz can of diced tomatoes
4 large peeled and diced fresh ripe tomatoes
¾ cup chopped onion (Red or Spanish)
3 tbsp jalapeño peppers. diced
1½ tsp garlic salt
1-156 ml can of tomato paste
1½ tbsp olive oil
3 tsp of chopped cilantro
1½ tsp salt

Roughly chop all the tomatoes (including the peeled tomatoes) in the blender for a few seconds, just enough to make them chunky (we don’t have a blender now, so I just chop them better). Add the rest of the ingredients and let it all sit in the fridge. It’s best of you make this a few days before serving it, otherwise it just tastes like tomatoes and oil.

The way I have always peeled tomatoes is to buy very ripe tomatoes, place them in a bowl, and pour boiling hot water over them, letting them sit for a few minutes. The skin will start to crack and can be peeled off. I have also heard about hot, then cold, but have never used this. There are, I’m sure, thousands of pages on the Internet dedicated to the best way to peel tomatoes, so if my method doesn’t work for you, I’m sure one will.