Team Soul Cocina’s 1st Place-winning salsa was smoky delicious thanks to the labor-intensive use of charred and fig wood-smoked ingredients. None of that fake liquid stuff here–no gracias! Add a spicy, smoky kick to your food routine with some Salsa de Cascabel! Continue reading for recipe…
Soul Cocina‘s Smoked Salsa de Cascabel
Ingredients:
-Chiles de Cascabel
-16 tomatillos
-12 early girl tomatoes
-2 small Spanish onions
-2 heads of garlic, peeled
-Chile de tepine
-Extra virgin olive oil
-Chiles de arbol
-Sea salt
-Juice of lime
-2 red onions, minced
-1 bunch cilantro
-Fig wood
Directions:
Toast two big handfulls of chile de cascabel peppers on a comal over low heat until lightly charred.
Remove seeds and lightly toast on the comal.
Char a dozen peeled tomatillos from tierra farm on the comal.
Char a dozen dry farmed early girl tomatoes from dirty girl farm.
Char two small sliced Spanish onions.
Roast two heads of peeled garlic at 325 degrees in a little Bariani extra virgin oilive oil with water and salt until caramel colored and soft.
Toast a small handful of chile tepine.
Heat Bariani extra virgin olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat.
Fry a small handful of chile de arbol peppers.
Place all dry ingredients on fig leaves and all wet ingredients on fig leaf lined pans on the upper shelves of an oven.
Burn a bunch of fig wood until fully charred and flaming. Blow out flame and set the smoking wood on the bottom shelf of oven. Close doors and smoke for a few hours, relighting the wood every hour or so to produce more smoke. For a lightly smoked flavor {like the award winning Soul Cocina salsa}, 2 hours is good. For a more pronounced smokey flavor go all day long.
In a molcajete, grind the chile tepine into a fine powder. Add some sea salt and a few cloves of raw garlic. Grind to a paste. Add the other chile peppers and grind. Continue to grind all the remaining ingredients.
Add fresh key lime juice, salt, 2 minced raw red onions, 4 minced raw tomatillos and 1 bunch chopped cilantro.