I’ve had this recipe saved in my list for awhile. Our local farmer’s market had one purveyor who had a great salsa and the main ingredient in his was the arbol chile. I’ve used it before, but never to make a salsa. No reason why, but that all changes today. We’re doing the simplest of salsas, but amplifying the arbol chiles.
The Prep Table
We’re just going to quarter the onion and hydrate the peppers. We’re going to toast the chiles, throw a quick saute on the onion/garlic (in the chile oil) and throw it all into a blender.
While the recipe said to use x amount of peppers, you know I’m going to do more.. so I hydrated 2x the amount and went from there.
The Process
Here’s where it got interesting. Brought it all inside and we got to the blender. I was going to blend and taste. But, I don’t really enjoy a warm salsa – I like a cold salsa. So I needed some refrigerator time before I could truly appreciate the creation.
So as I blended and took a chip to the salsa, I always wanted it hotter. So of course, I added ’em all. I think the ratio was about 1 onion to 40 chiles. They’re small, so sounds crazy – but it still didn’t get to be crazy hot like I would’ve wanted. And the one thing I didn’t like was the onion. I think a raw onion would’ve been better as the sweetness was a little bit too much.
The Result
So as good of a salsa as it was, this was a far better taco sauce than anything. For most, they’ll use it as a salsa, so the title remains. But if I was going brick and mortar with ForensicBBQ – this is my taco sauce all day. I gave some away, kept a lot.. which means I ate a lot. And sure, just chips and salsa was good – atop a taco was far better.