Piquant Pico II

Because yes, we did eat all that Pico de Gallo in just a few days. We tried to make a greater quantity of it this time, in the hopes that it’ll last us through the week. I don’t hold out great hope, however, as this stuff is simply too addictive!

This time, we roasted the peppers and the tomatoes. If you have decent (i.e., not British) tomatoes, then you can probably skip the roasting of them. These babies, though, were truly British tomatoes, meaning that they had a fair degree of crunch to them. Yep – crunch. Think … overripe, yellow apple and you’ve got the level of crunch.

Just so you’ll have it (and so we’ll remember it), here’s the recipe for a truly fabulous Pico de Gallo:

Pico de Gallo

• 3 large bell peppers, preferably orange or yellow
• 10 medium tomatoes
• 3 large cloves garlic
• 2 large yellow onions
• 5 Thai Bird chiles
• 1 small lime
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp white vinegar
• 1 Tbsp juice from cauliflower pickles
• 20 grinds black pepper (see note)

1. Roast your peppers until they are charred and black looking. Get them as black as possible, as this will make things much easier later.
2. Tuck them into a covered dish, to sweat for a while.
3. Roast your tomatoes until the skins pop, making sure you’ve roasted the whole thing. The idea isn’t to blacken, but to loosen the skin. You could blanch them, if you prefer.
4. Put the roasted tomatoes in with the peppers, and begin prepping your other ingredients.
5. Finely dice 1.5 of your onions, reserving any large chunks (i.e., near the bulb end where it’s difficult to slice).
6. Peel your garlic cloves.
7. Now, revisit your peppers and tomatoes, removing their stems, skins, seeds, and any rough bits from the tomatoes (that central vein is rather annoying sometimes, and difficult to chew).
8. Put your garlic, 1/2 of one of the onions (plus any extra bits), one of the roasted peppers, 3 of the tomatoes, your Thai Bird chiles, and your juices (including the lime) into a food processor. Puree this until smooth.
9. Finely chop the remaining 2 bell peppers, and 7 tomatoes.
10. Mix it all up, grind the pepper over it, and put it in a jar.
11. Let sit for a day or so, if you can stand to, and it’ll get even better.

Note: “Black pepper,” this week, consists of about 75% true Black Pepper from Sri Lanka, 20% Sichuan Chinese pepper (a.k.a., bird pepper, which was illegal in the US until 1995), and 5% allspice berries.

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