To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, and to kick off the season for awesome produce, I decided to whip up a batch of salsa fresca.  A bowl of this and a bag of tortilla chips and I'm set for dinner!  If you want something more filling and protein-packed, you can use a can of vegetarian refried beans - either as an additional dip, or to top your chips and bake up a batch of nachos.

You can find a lot of salsa recipes online if you go looking.  But the truth is that salsa is one of those things, like salads, that's more of a procedure than a recipe.  All you need is a mental map of the different elements, and then you can customize it, mix and match ingredients, and skew it towards whatever looks good on the produce aisle today.

A note about preparation: salsa fresca is best if you prepare it at least a few hours ahead of time and refrigerate it.  (Covered, unless you want to salsa-flavor your butter and milk.)  But it's fine to eat right away!  

A note about ingredients: don't use anything from a can or jar.  Fresh only.  Swear to god, if you try to feed me salsa with V8 juice, or canned minced jalapenos, or bottled minced garlic, I will END YOU.

The Base
The classic base for salsa is tomatoes.  Most recipes specify roma tomatoes, but I go with whatever looks best at the store. Here in Washington we get some amazing hothouse tomatoes on the vine from British Columbia.  I've even used cherry tomatoes, when they were on sale.  

Use about 3 roma tomatoes, or 2 medium tomatoes, or a double handful of cherry tomatoes, and give them a rough chop.  Try to get as much of the juice in the salsa as possible.  I have even resorted to tilting the cutting board to drain the juice into the bowl.

The Chili Pepper

I am a stone cold wimp.  I buy one jalapeno pepper, I carefully strip and compost the seeds (the spiciest part), and I only use half a jalapeno for each batch.  Feel free to experiment with the type and amount of peppers!  

Word to the wise, it's better to use too little than too much.

Additional Flavors

Garlic: I always add a few cloves (minced by hand, not crushed in the garlic press).

Onion-ish: Sometimes I use half a Walla Walla sweet onion, sometimes 1-2 green onions, sometimes half a red or orange bell pepper if they're on sale.  I think traditional salsa uses white onions, but they're a little too harsh for my taste.

Cilantro: I am a cilantro FREAK, straight up.  I will use about 1/4th of a bunch of cilantro, minced as fine as I can go before I get too bored.  Feel free to omit if you're a cilantro-hater.

Liquids

You need to add two liquids: an acid and an oil.  I add about 3 tablespoons of acid, and about 1 tablespoon of oil.  This is what brings out the flavor and melds everything together.

Acid: the juice from a whole lemon works great.  The juice from one or two whole limes is even better.  In a pinch, use a splash of white or apple cider vinegar.  (Not red wine or balsamic.)

Oil: Olive oil is great for you, and it works well if you have a bottle of oil with a mild flavor.  I usually play it safe and use a splash of vegetable oil instead.