Roasted Garlic & Chipotle Salsa

I judge Mexican restaurants by their salsa (and hamburger joints by their fries, but that’s another story).  I don’t care how good the chile rellenos are or how authentic the enchiladas are.  If the salsa tastes like ketchup, or heaven-forbid the chips and salsa aren’t served as a matter of course when you’re seated at the table, then I’m not going.

There is method to my madness (or at least I think so).  Given the right tools, salsa is one of the easiest recipes to make and, with a little bit of practice, it’s not that hard to come up with a good flavor combination.

The recipe below is a flavorful and easy four-ingredient salsa recipe that I make quite frequently because I always have the ingredients on hand.  The key is to roast the onion and garlic long enough to give them a smoky flavor that complements the chipotle.

Note: I use my food processor to blend all of the ingredients together.  There are very few recipes I make in which I do not use a food processor–it dices everything to the desired texture and makes for an easy clean-up.  If you do not have a food processor, you could use a blender or even chop up the ingredients and mix them in a bowl (or, if you’re super serious, a molcajete).

Roasted Garlic & Chipotle Salsa

• 1 medium white onion

• 1 head of garlic

• 1 can diced tomatoes (14.5oz)

• 1 can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (I prefer the La Costena brand, but other brands work too)

Let’s get started!

Position your oven rack to the highest position and turn the oven to the broil setting.  You’ll want the heating element to be about 5-6 inches away from your pan.  If you have one of those ovens with a broiler drawer in the bottom, you can use that but you’ll need to lower the roasting time.  Closer to the heating element = less roasting time.

 

(1) Chop off the ends of the onion, (2) cut the onion in half and remove the peel, then (3) cut the the onion into eights and (4) pull apart all of the onion layers.

 

Take the head of garlic and, using a sharp knife (I have this one), slice off the root part to expose the little garlic nubs.  It’s OK if some of the garlic cloves fall off.

Put the onion pieces and garlic on a baking pan lined with foil, and place the pan under the broiler.  Set a timer for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile . . .

Open your can of diced tomatoes and dump the tomatoes in a strainer set in the sink.  Using a rubber spatula, press all of the juice out of the tomatoes.  Set it aside.

By this time, 10 minutes should have passed.  Check on the onion and garlic in the oven.  It should be starting to brown, and the edges of the onion should be turning black and curling up.  Use tongs to flip the garlic over (I already flipped mine in the above pic), and put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes.

After the 5 minutes is up, pull the pan from the oven and check the onion and garlic.  The edges of the onion should be pretty black now, and the garlic should be slightly soft when you press on it with your finger.  Let everything cool for about 5-10 minutes until the garlic is easily handleable.

Now it’s time to separate the garlic cloves from the bulb.  Pull each clove off of the bulb, then grab it at the end that was not cut and squeeze.  The roasted garlic should pop out.  (You’ll have to press and work a little bit more on the finicky pieces to get them out).

Now it’s time to put everything together!  Add all of the onions and peeled garlic cloves to the food processor.  Process for 5 seconds, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and then process for another 5 seconds.  The onion and garlic should be finely diced at this point.

Next add the tomatoes from the strainer and 3 chipotle peppers.  (You can add fewer peppers if you want the salsa to be less spicy, but the peppers impart a lot of the smokey flavor, so three is an ideal number). Process for 5 seconds, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and then process for another 5 seconds.  All of the ingredients should be evenly diced at this point, and there shouldn’t be any large chunks of tomatoes in the salsa.  If the tomatoes aren’t fully chopped, then process the mixture for another 5 seconds.

Put the salsa in a serving bowl and eat up!  It tastes great with tortilla chips but is also delicious on eggs and just about anything that goes in a tortilla (read: pulled pork tacos, chicken fajitas, breakfast tacos . . . the possibilities are endless).