Until recently, I had never cooked with tomatillos. They weren’t a food I grew up with, and I had no idea how to prepare them. But I do love a fresh, zingy tomatillo salsa, so I decided to start there.
A couple of years ago, I signed up for a CSA (community supported agriculture) box. I chose the one I did because unlike many, it is extremely customizable. You start with a default box, but you can easily change the amounts and types of items in the box, or skip a week entirely. When I look at the list of vegetables for the upcoming week, sometimes I’ll leave in items I’ve never cooked with before, to challenge myself to figure out how to use them. And that is how I ended up making this tomatillo verde salsa.
Have you ever bought fresh tomatillos? In their skins, they look kind of like little papery tomatoes.
Once you take the skins off, they’re a bit sticky, but you can rinse that off with warm water.
And then it’s easy to roast them up, and blend them into salsa.
Roasted Tomatillo Salsa Verde
1 pound fresh tomatillos
1 serrano chile pepper
1-2 jalapeno chile peppers
1 lime, juiced (about 1 Tbsp juice)
3 garlic cloves
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
1/2 large onion, coarsely chopped
1-2 teaspoons salt
Preheat broiler on high.
Remove the husks from the tomatillos and rinse under warm water to remove stickiness. Place the chiles, garlic, and fresh tomatillos on a sheet pan, and roast 1 to 2 inches from heat. Turn after 5 minutes, then roast an additional 2 to 5 minutes, until tomatillos are softened and slightly charred.
Cut the stems off of the chiles and remove the paper from the garlic.
Place all ingredients in a blender, starting with one of the jalapeno chiles and 1 tsp of salt, and puree until coarsely blended. Taste, and add additional salt and chiles as desired.
