About a month ago I posted my roasted vegetable salsa recipe where I made a promise to publish my variation of Tacodeli’s famous Doña salsa. It is an Austin staple that should be included in every Austin guidebook. Words can't describe how good it is. It has a pale green color and creamy texture that will make you think that it's some sort of avocado salsa. But when you taste it you will first feel a subtle hint of roasted garlic and then instantly the heat of the jalapeños will take over your senses. It feels like a heatwave just blew through your mouth.

The good part about the recipe that you're about to read is that you can dictate the heat level by controlling the quantity of the seeds and the white membrane inside the jalapeños. If it still comes out too spicy for your taste you can cut the heat by using sour cream or heavy cream. I know Tacodeli doesn't use any of that (theirs is vegan), but if you have no problems with dairy, feel free to add a bit anyway. It will make the salsa's texture even smoother.

I personally like spicy food. My dad always had fresh, dried or pickled hot peppers at home and he would use them in every dish he ate. He would cut a few slices into his chicken noodle soup, which I found pretty weird at first, but over time I started to copy him, trying to build up to his amount of peppers.

In about a month I will be taking a trip to Hungary for a conference. My sister still lives there and, although my parents live in Romania, we usually all meet in Budapest. When I asked my dad what to bring him, the first request he had was jalapeños. My dad is at the age where he finds relaxation in gardening, watching cooking, fishing and hunting TV shows. He doesn't want to get all pumped up by watching news about corruption, politics, scandals and all that jazz, so he switched over to more pleasant activities. He now spends his evening growing vegetables in my grandmother's garden.

My dad has an impressive collection of hot peppers from all over the world. He just loves to grow them and gets really serious about it. He nurses the seeds indoors, then takes the seedlings out in the garden. He even drilled a water well and build an irrigation system for his garden. He sometimes even Skypes me in the middle of the night asking me to explain why his water pump doesn't work, like I am some sort of a water pump expert.

This Doña salsa variation of mine is pretty similar in taste to the Tacodeli one. The texture is slightly different, but mostly because I didn't emulsify the sauce for long enough and with as much oil and because I like my salsas on the chunkier side, and not on the completely smooth side.

I'm sure that Tacodeli's salsa doesn't have as much lime juice and cumin as mine, and no cilantro and sour cream at all, but these are twists that make it more to my liking. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Fiery Jalapeño Salsa

Yields 1 cup
Cook time: 15 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

1 pound jalapeño
1 bulb garlic
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 medium lime, juiced
1 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 cup olive oil (or peanut or mix of both)
2 TBS sour cream, optional
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro
salt, to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Wash jalapeño peppers, pat them dry and then put them in a medium bowl. Break up bulb of garlic by hitting the top of it with the heel of your hand. Toss the garlic cloves into the bowl of jalapeños and lightly sprinkle with olive oil and a pinch of salt.
Heat up your grill to medium. If using a stove-top cast iron grill, you need not worry about the garlic falling in between the racks. In case you're using an outdoors grill, use a layer of tin foil to prevent that from happening. Place the garlic on the colder side of the grill to avoid them from burning. Burned garlic tastes bitter.
Grill jalapeños until they are blistered and charred, about 15-20 minutes, turning them occasionally. The grilling time will vary based on the size of the peppers. Same rule applies for the garlic cloves- the smaller ones will cook faster.
Remove the vegetables from the grill starting with the garlic. The garlic should be soft when pierced with a knife. Set the garlic aside. Place the jalapeños in a container and cover for about 10 minutes. This will make your life easier when peeling them.
In the meantime, peel the grilled garlic and place the cloves into a food processor.
Start peeling the jalapeños, removing the skins with a knife. Use gloves. Trust me, you don't want to touch any part of your body after peeling jalapeños with your barehands. I learned it the hard way.
Remove the seeds and the white membrane that holds the seeds (placental tissue). If you like it really spicy leave a few in the mix.
Toss the peppers into the food processor along with the garlic. Add water, lime juice, salt, pepper and cumin and pulse. Slowly add oil to emulsify until the salsa becomes creamy and smooth.
Add sour cream for extra creaminess. I use more sour cream when the salsa comes out really hot and I want to cut the heat a bit. Sprinkle cilantro on top, or mix it in the salsa.
Store the salsa in a jar in the fridge. The texture will change a bit when cooled, but you can fix that by adding a tablespoon of warm water and shaking

I love Mexican cuisine and all of its American variations: Tex-Mex, New Mexican, Rancho, etc. I can't resist the bold flavors that fresh ingredients bring into these dishes, the a mix of hearty meats and cheeses with all kinds of sauces and vegetables.

In certain ways the abundance of flavors, textures and spices remind me of Eastern European cooking. In Romania we have a spread called zacusca which has a bunch of variations in the Balkans like ajvar, ljutenica or pindjur. All of them are vegetable-based with ingredients like onions, peppers and tomatoes, and sometimes aubergines, mushrooms and beans. If you think about Mexican salsas, they are not that different ingredients-wise. One thing that's not common between the two is that the salsas are served fresh, whereas the relishes/spreads in the Eastern European cuisine are preserved.

What blows my mind is that, even though the two cultures are so different and the two regions are so far away from each other, there are still similarities when it comes to flavors and ingredients.

I find salsa to be one of the most important ingredients in Mexican food. A good salsa has the ability to make a decent dish amazing. It's the ingredient that will take your taco or burrito game to the next level. What's amazing about them is how easily they can be made. If you read my previous blog post, I shared my Blackened Fish Taco recipe. That taco is marvelous as is, but if you add a spoon of this salsa or my other favorite, the TacoDeli-inspired Doña salsa (recipe to come), I guarantee that your tasting taste buds will have an orgasm.

This salsa recipe is my take on a traditional charred vegetable salsa. I've tried several other combinations and this is the best I could come up with. I added a little twist by grilling the lime and adding a bit of cumin, but the main ingredients are the traditional onions, peppers and tomatoes.

My version is on the milder side of the spectrum. I use poblano and jalapeño peppers instead of serranos and I usually remove the seeds and most of the white membrane that holds the seeds (placental tissue). That's not because I don’t like heat, but because it’s a good balance to my more fiery salsa mentioned above. You can use it for your tacos, burritos, on your breakfast eggs or as a dip with warm corn tortilla chips. No matter how you eat it, this salsa is going to make your food taste better.

Enjoy!

Roasted vegetable salsa

Yields 2-3 cups
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

2 large tomatoes, halved
1 large red onion, halved
1/2 medium yellow onion, halved
2 poblano peppers, halved and deseeded
1 jalapeño, halved and deseeded
1 bulb garlic, halved
1 lime, halved
2 tsp olive oil, drizzled
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 lime, juiced (about 1-2 TBS fresh lime juice)
1/2 tsp cumin, ground
1 tsp black pepper, freshly cracked
salt, to taste

Instructions

Preheat the grill to medium-high heat. If you're using your oven pre-heat it to 425F (220C) degrees.
Place the tomatoes, onions, poblano and jalapeño peppers, garlic and lime halves in a medium bowl. Drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. The amount of salt shouldn't matter at this point so don't sweat too much over it.
Transfer the vegetables to the grill. If you're roasting them in the oven, transfer them to a baking tray that's lined with aluminum foil.
Grill until the veggies are blistered and charred, about 10-15 minutes, turning them occasionally.
Remove the vegetables from the grill. Start with the tomatoes as they cook faster. If you're broiling them in the oven, jut take the tray out and let them cool for a bit.
Once the veggies are cooled down, press the garlic out of its shell, remove the skins of the tomatoes and peppers, clean the peel off the onions and gently squeeze the charred limes into the food processor. Make sure that only the juice gets out of the lime because the pulp and the white membrane is going to make your salsa bitter.
Transfer the vegetables and juices to a food processor, add the cilantro and pulse until you reach your preferred level of chunkiness. Add the lime juice, cumin, black pepper and salt to taste and pulse one more time to mix in the spices.
Transfer to a mason jar and refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving. If properly cooled, it will stays good for about 10 days.