Fire Roasted Salsa

A while back I mentioned a post on the egghead forum about fire roasted salsa and I have been very excited about making it ever since.  Since Cinco de Mayo was on Thursday this year and MBH was traveling back home we decided to have our own made up Mexican holiday which we cleverly called Sixo de Mayo.  It was the perfect time to make some Mexican style foods and sit outside to enjoy the beautiful weather with a margarita (or four).  I decided that the menu was going to have to revolve around this salsa since I was determined to make it.  I went by BHFM to grab some roma tomatoes, onion, garlic, sorranos, jalapenos, and cilantro.

Prep:
The only prep involved in this cook was to wash off the veggies I had just bought.  In hindsight, this was probably not necessary since everything would get cooked off on the grill anyway.

Cooking:
I set the egg up for direct cooking at 400º and placed everything but the cilantro on the grill.  I took everything but the onion off after about 20 minutes and let the onion go for an extra 10 minutes.



Everybody on the grill!



Just before I started pulling everyone off.

After pulling everything off, we de-stemed and partially de-seeded the sorranos and jalapenos (we probably left half of the seeds to add a little heat to the salsa). We chopped everything coarsely using a knock-off slap chop ("You're gonna love my nuts" -Slapchop Guy). Everything was placed in a bowl and mixed with a fork.  We added the juice of a lime, salt, and cumin to taste.  We let the salsa cool briefly before eating.

Wow, I wish I had some more right now!



Served with whole grain tortilla chips.

 Notes:
The salsa had some really good fire roasted flavor.  Leaving the seeds in added a decent amount of heat but it was sporadic between bites (glad I had a cold Margarita after a couple of the bites). When we ate it again the next day, the heat was well distributed. 

A couple of things I would change next time:
1. I would do maybe 2 or 3 tomatoes for slightly less time on the grill to keep them firmer and make the salsa more chunky. This would also help in the presentation as my salsa looks more liquidy than I was going for.
2. I would cool all of the ingredients before chopping them so that they have a chance to firm up. (see #1)
3. I would wait to eat this several hours after it was cooked.  It was strange to eat warm salsa and it was so much better after the flavors and heat had the opportunity to spread throughout the salsa.

All in all, the salsa was spectacular.  I am very excited to make it again.  I made quite a bit of salsa but it didn't even survive the weekend.  We found ourselves eating it whenever we had a free minute.   However, this was only the beginning of our Sixo de Mayo meal.  Stay tuned for some egged fajitas that will make you drool...