Rick Bayless’ Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Food, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetables

by A.J. Coltrane

The tomatillos have been cranking out fruit. Four and a half pounds of the stuff were dominating the kitchen counters. It was time to make a salsa. It was time for a Rick Bayless recipe.

In short- it’s roasted tomatillos, jalapeno, and garlic, blended with water and cilantro. Minced white onion and salt are added at the end.

There were enough tomatillos for 9 batches of the Bayless recipe. (At 8 ounces of tomatillos, a Jalapeno, and two cloves of garlic per recipe batch.) To keep it manageable it got broiled it in 3 x 24 ounce groups:

090113 salsa batches

I just noticed — everything got scaled properly except the garlic. Each of those batches should have six cloves of garlic, not two. Oh well.

Removed to bowl to cool:

Keep the juice created by the broiling process.
Keep the juice created by the broiling process.

Then the blending. Then the onion and salt. If I had it to do over again I would have used less than the recommended amount of water and added it later if I felt the salsa was too thick. As it was, I felt like the salsa was a vaguely loose.

090113 salsa complete

Overall though, it went over well. This is the new go-to green salsa recipe.

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3 thoughts on “Rick Bayless’ Roasted Tomatillo Salsa”

  2. The jalapenos weren’t very big. The overall flavor profile was nice, but I wound up adding a little bit of sriracha at the end to give it just a touch of heat. It wasn’t just me eating it, and I didn’t want to blow people away.

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  3. It’s salsa making time of year again (within three days of last year’s post(!))

    The recipe link in the post is now broken. Current link and the recipe:
    http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/roasted-tomatillo-salsa/

    INGREDIENTS

    8 ounces (3 to 4 medium)tomatillos, husked and rinsed
    Fresh hot green chiles to taste (1 or 2 serranos or 1 jalapeno), stemmed
    2 large garlic cloves, peeled
    6 sprigs of fresh cilantro (thick bottom stems cut off), roughly chopped
    1 small white onion, finely chopped
    Salt

    INSTRUCTIONS

    Roast the tomatillos, chile(s) and garlic on a rimmed baking sheet 4 inches below a very hot broiler, until blotchy black and softening (they’ll be turning from lime green to olive), about 5 minutes. Flip them over and roast the other side. Cool, then transfer everything to a blender, including all the delicious juice the tomatillos have exuded during roasting. Add the cilantro and 1/4 cup water, then blend to a coarse puree. Scoop into a serving dish. Rinse the onion under cold water, then shake to remove excess moisture. Stir into the salsa and season with salt, usually 1/2 teaspoon.

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