Experimenting with salsa.

[kurukami]

I'm signed up for a number of recipe mailing lists, and occasionally (OK, more than occasionally) I print out dishes I want to try out. Recently, I snagged a recipe for pan-fried chicken and ancho chili salsa (to go on flatbread/pita). Although I haven't actually made that recipe yet, I was experimenting with the salsa itself -- which,

Comments

[nwhepcat]

Depends on where your recipes are coming from -- actually in some places, they refer to cilantro as fresh coriander, so you were absolutely right. Also ancho peppers are dried poblano peppers, so they were close but not exact. Though to avoid confusion, if they are gonna call a recipe Ancho Salsa, they should call them ancho peppers in the recipe! (Reminds me of a friend who made curry but said, "But it didn't call for curry powder!" It did, however, call for all the spices that make up curry powder -- or one kind of curry powder. It's like the pumpkin pie spice of the curry world.)

[kurukami]

This particular recipe came from Good Morning America. I'll have to try it again with poblano peppers, sometime -- although since poblanos are notably bigger than jalapenos (though hotter, right?), I'd be tempted to cut it down to maybe one pepper.

[nwhepcat]

I'd try them with the anchos, which will be different dried than fresh. They probably won't be in the produce section, but if there's a Mexican section or little store in the neighborhood, they'd probably be in a plastic bag with a bunch of spices and dried peppers. Buy a package of Pinuinos if you do to a store; they're awesome.

Weird that they call it fresh coriander, because I've never heard that in the US.

[starcat_jewel]

1) Chipotles are actually dried smoked jalapenos, so yeah, not sure why it would be called ancho salsa. Fresh jalapenos won't have the smokiness of chipotles, but are otherwise okay.

2) Roma tomatoes have more actual tomato flavor than anything else you'll find outside of a farmer's market. Frankly, my suggestion on this would be to hold off making it again until summer, and use real vine-ripened tomatoes.

3) Spring onion is another name for scallions, which are much smaller than onions. Your eighthed-onion substitution wasn't a bad idea, but you probably should have only used half.

4) I can't imagine why the recipe would have called for lemon pulp. Juice of 1 lemon seems more probable, and would cut back on the over-lemoning.

5) Coriander vs. cilantro.. I'm with nwhepcat that "fresh coriander" probably means cilantro, so you made the right choice there.

[kurukami]

1 & 2. *nods* OK, I'll keep that in mind for future usage and see if I can't try tracking down some chipotles. Weirdly, though I love and have no trouble with jalapenos, chipotle pepper seasoning sometimes gives me indigestion.

3. See now, I knew green onions were scallions, but "spring onions" is a new moniker of that for me.

4. Good Morning America's recipes seem rife with lacking measurements and all manner of weird "wait, you want me to put what in this?" moments? *grin* I'll try out just the lemon juice next time.