Pico de Gallo

The difference between salsa and pico de gallo is that salsa is cooked; pico de gallo is  made from fresh ingredients and stored fresh.

My personal recipe for pico de gallo goes more or less like this.

3-4 lbs fresh tomatoes

2 serrano peppers; more if you like it hotter, you can add several de-seeded for the color..I usually stick with 1 1/2, and scrape the seeds out of the other halved pepper. Be sure to chop the peppers fine…use a glove too or you will regret it…serranos are extremely hot…and unforgiving if you rub your eye…or “other places”.

1/4 C minced onion

1 T vegetable or canola oil

juice from a fresh lime; 1/2 lime if you use Persian lime

1-2 bunches of fresh cilantro, leaves removed and chopped

Cut the ends off your serranos and split in two. Depending how big they are, you may or may not want to de-seed one of them (it’s the seeds and inside that add the heat). Oh heck be brave and finely chop both of them, placing them in large bowl. NOTE: it’s easier to add more serranos later to add some heat, rather than get it too hot early…

Place your finely chopped onion with them.

Add your oil

Add your salt

set aside

Blanch your tomatoes if you like; I used to but it was too much work. Slice your tomatoes, then chop them finer with a sharp knife.

Add to your container of onion, peppers, salt and lime.

Pull the leaves off your cilantro. I know it’s a pain, but you can just chop it up stems and all, but you will have “chewier” pico de gallo with the stems. ( I have graduated to this route as leaf pulling is boring…just chop up the leaf ends, stems and all about half way)

Mix your ingredients well and chill for several hours…nothing wrong with a sample…chef’s privilege.

This will last about a week in your fridge.

Remember, you want this thin enough to dip tortilla chips into and scoop out large amounts piled on your chip. Too many big pieces will break your chips.

Note:

The last batch I made (today, Oct 18) I used 6 Roma tomatoes, 2 serrano peppers, maybe 2 T minced onion, half bunch of cilantro, juice of 1/2 lime, olive oil, and salt.

I did not remove the slime and seeds from the tomatoes. It was a lot less work than rinsing them under water…just sayin’. 1/2 serrano in its entirety, and the other 1 1/2 peppers were de-seeded.