News: Don's Bad Ass pico Degallo

I keep Pico Degallo around all the time.  I find it is very versatile and can be used for any meal.  My wife is 1/2 mexican and I learned about this from her mother.  My youngest son loves to cook and it was one of the first things I taught him to make.  As you read my writings about food I've made, you will find a lot of references to the pico.  I've made up this little recipe to give you a smile as well as the ingredients and method.

Don's Bad Ass Pico Degallo

 Ingredients:

One medium yellow onion

6 to 8 Roma tomatoes.  You can use any tomatoes you like but I think the Roma are the most flavorful.  They are also small so they are a little more work than a bigger tomato would be but again, I think they are worth the effort.

1 bunch cilantro

3 nice jalapenos

2 limes

3 or 4 tablespoons minced garlic

1 can diced tomatoes.  I can't get the right flavor using only fresh tomatoes for some reason.

Salt to taste

a pinch or two of Cumin

1  6 pack of beer

Method:

Crack open a beer and take a few sips to prepare yourself for all this slicing and dicing.

Peel and dice the onion.  The onion bits need to be about 1/4 inch and as uniform as you can make them.  Toss it in the bowl.  This may make you cry so drink the rest of the beer to drown your sorrows.

Crack open another beer.  Dice the Tomatoes.  These also need to be about 1/4 inch and uniform in size.  Toss them in the bowl with the onions.  This will take a while and you might be tired so drink some beer and rest for a minute.

Crack open another beer.  Seed the peppers.    This is important.  You don't want the heat from the seed pods in the salsa.  The peppers need to be about 1/8 inch dice. Much smaller than the tomatoes and onions so they will disperse evenly and the flavors can meld better without getting a huge chunk of pepper in any one bite.  Caution:  you might want to think about using some gloves for this as the capsaicin will stay on your fingers even after washing.  If you rub your eyes or pick your nose later, you will be reminded about the peppers.  Drink some beer and wash your hands.

Now mince the cilantro.  I try to kind of chifonad but there is no trick to this, just chop it as fine as you can.  It should resemble lawn clippings when you're done.  Toss this in the bowl too. Finish that beer before it gets warm.

Open another beer.  Add the Garlic, squeeze the limes, add the cumin and add salt.  Drink a little beer.  You're nearly done.

Open the can of tomatoes.  They will be a little larger than the ones you diced so I chop them up a bit.  Now check the salt content again because it will probably need some more. 

Finish that beer and clean up.  You're all done! 

To make Black bean and Corn salsa, I open a can of black beans and rinse them, open a small can of Niblets corn and rinse it and toss in a bowl.  I then take part of the pico de gallo and mix in until it has the right consistency and looks like salsa.  You will need to add a bit more salt and some more lime juice is nice.

To make guacamole, I do pretty much the same thing.  I take some avocados and dump the flesh in a bowl.  I use a potato masher to mash it up and add some of the juice and veggies from the pico degallo until it tastes like it's supposed to.  I mash this all together and add a little salt and lime so the avocados don't get dark.  That's the fresh Gaucamole.

Now you have 2 beers left so invite a friend and open some chips and enjoy!