Tomatillo salsa verde

This absolutely blew me away. I am positively addicted.



I've been curious about tomatillos for a while now, and tried some recently at Cascabel on a chicken taco. The chicken was a tad dense, and salty, but something about the tomatillo sauce toned down the chicken-y saltiness.


I looked up various recipes - everyone has their own slight variations but in general, the best seems to be to roast/char/broil/grill the tomatillos (which have been husked and rinsed) along with a couple of cloves of garlic, some onion, and some chilis - serranos and jalapenos seem to be the most popular but I happened to buy a poblano at the farmer's market and used one of those as well as a jalapeno.


I broiled this batch for a total of about 15-20 min I think, keeping a close eye on it (but clearly not close enough, judging by some of the very brown parts), turning once.


After roasting and letting cool slightly, I removed the charred bits off of the peppers and removed the seeds (mostly) and ribs, and peeled the garlic.


Then I dumped everything in the blender with a large handful of cilantro.


Salt to taste.


Oh, my. First of all, I need to use milder peppers next time. One bite and I started crying and sweating. The heat did sort of mellow out the longer I let it sit, but I don't want it to overwhelm the tang of the tomatillos.


I think I ended up eating half of the batch I made in one sitting, just with chips alone. I hear this is great with chicken and fish, on eggs, or, of course, Mexican dishes like enchiladas and tacos. If I hadn't finished off the bag of chips, I probably would've kept eating this batch. In order to restrain myself, I put the remainder into a container and stuck it in the freezer. How's that for a diet trick??