Fresh Salsa

We can start this post with a little ode to Mexican food: "Mexican food, YUM!".  Mexican food was one of the first things I had to figure out how to make from scratch here in Tunisia.  I'm from the West Coast of the USA and we eat Mexican food a lot (or at least our American version of it...although during my time in Los Angeles I hope I got something close to the real thing).  This recipe is for fresh salsa.  It's super easy to make!  Here's how it goes:

You need a simple list of fresh ingredients: coriander (cilantro), onions, garlic, lemons (if I were in the US I would be using limes but we don't have them in Tunisia...do lemons get the job done, definitely), a hot pepper or two and 2 cans of tomatoes. 

Here are the spices you'll be needing: a few of your garlic cloves, some salt, paprika, and cumin.  At this point in the photo shoot I was hijacked by a future food stylist: 6 year old girlie suddenly put her riff on this picture.

"Now Mom it looks totally gorgeous!".  White walrus stuffed animal couple plugging salsa recipe, why didn't I think of that??

Now around our house we like our salsa on the hot side, so I tend to just chuck the hot pepper in the food processor.  If you don't like spicy you could seed the pepper (carefully protecting your hands by holding the pepper with plastic wrap) or you could just throw in a wee bit of the pepper, it's up to you.

Blend, blend, blend.

Adding the 2 cans of tomatoes, spices, lemon juice.

Voila! This is going to be really yummy on our taco salads tonight!

Walrus couple forms circle of love around salsa, but don't take their word for it, try it!

Here's the recipe:

Fresh Salsa

1 bunch cilantro (coriander)

2-3 garlic cloves

1 onion

1-2 hot peppers

1 lemon juiced (or lime if you're in the West).

2 cans of tomatoes

1 t cumin

1 t paprika

1/2 t salt

1. Wash all your veg.  Put cilantro, garlic cloves, onion and hot pepper (as much as you desire for mild or spicy salsa) in food processor.  Pulse for 1-2 minutes until everything is finely chopped.  Add the canned tomato, lemon juice, and spices.  Pulse again for 1 minute until everything is well blended.   Serve up!

A note on coriander in Tunisia: I love cooking with coriander (cilantro if you're American...if you need to find it in the market in Tunis you'll be looking for the French "coriandre"). Unfortunately it is definitely not one of staple items that you can find in the market everywhere.  You can find it though, places I buy coriander are Carrefour, the La Marsa market, the central market in Tunis, the market near Bab El Khadre in Tunis, and sometimes Monoprix.  It's not something I can find 100 percent of the time, usually the fresh outdoor markets such as the central market and Bab el Khadre are more likely to have it than the grocery stores.  So, I don't plan an important dinner around it...but if I do run into it guarantee we'll be making fresh salsa or Indian food in the next 2 days :).