Roasted Tomato Salsa with Tortilla Chips

From the book The Basic Gourmet Entertains by Diane Morgan, Dan Taggart, and Kathleen Taggart

Introduction

This is a simple, zippy, red salsa with a good amount of heat. Feel free to adjust the heat level to your taste. It is great with chips to start the party, and is also a wonderful accompaniment to the quesadillas

Ingredients

Steps

1. Preheat broiler. Place tomato halves, cut sides down, on a nonstick baking sheet or a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil to make cleanup easier. Broil until skin of tomatoes has blistered and blackened. Let cool on paper towels to absorb excess moisture. Coarsely chop and place in a medium mixing bowl with serrano chilies, red onion, vinegar, sugar, and cilantro. When ready to serve, transfer to serving dish and garnish with sliced jalapeño, if using. Serve with tortilla chips.

Notes

• Much of the year, the best choice for tomatoes for this salsa will be Roma, or plum, tomatoes. However, some excellent hydroponic tomatoes are available all year. Choose whichever tomato is the brightest red (anemic pink ones shouldn’t even be called tomatoes!).
• Serrano chilies are smaller and hotter than jalapeño chilies. If you cannot find serranos, jalapeños are fine. We suggest 4 or 5 of them, split and seeded.
• We recommend rice wine vinegar, but plain, white distilled vinegar can be substituted.
• This salsa is best served the day it is made. However, it can be made 1 day in advance with a little loss of freshness.

This content is from the book The Basic Gourmet Entertains by Diane Morgan, Dan Taggart, and Kathleen Taggart.