This recipe might not be of much interest to my U.S. friends who live in the land of salsa plenty, but for the salsa lovers of Amman, where a 16 oz. jar of Pace salsa costs a cool five dollars this recipe might be helpful: 2.25 gallons of salsa at a cost of about fifteen dollars--or--9.5 litres for about JD 11. Quite a savings.
Our family likes salsa. Loves salsa. I used to make it from scratch and from all fresh ingredients when the children were young. I seeded all the hot peppers by hand and will never forget how I learned the hard way how important it is to wear rubber gloves when working with hot peppers. Those were the days when the children were playing at my feet. Now, they are playing at the ballfield and the conservatory so there is no time to peel 10 Kilograms of tomatoes or seed hot peppers. Thus, I've cut some time corners by using now available canned chopped tomatoes and jalepeno peppers. The cilantro/kuzbara, garlic, onion, and lemon juice are still fresh.
The Recipe~
Combine in a large stock pot:
3 large cans of cooked chopped tomatoes, in juice. These cans were labled at 2.550 K and I purchased them at Carrefour in the bulk section. They looked to be the same size as the cans available at Costco in the States.
1 cup fresh lemon juice
3 bunches of cilantro Take the leaves off the stems and chop them in the food processor. Three Amman size bunches yielded a large salad bowl/mixing bowl of leaves after they were removed from the stems. Maybe about 12-15 cups of loose leaves, not packed down.
4 large onions, chopped in the food processor
40 cloves of garlic, chopped in the food processor
5 canned jalepeno peppers, choppped in the food processor. Adjust the amount of this ingredient according to taste.
3 Tablespoons salt
Bring all the ingredients to a boil and simmer for about 10 minutes. The salsa can now be canned (20 minute hot water bath) or frozen. No time for canning right now so this batch goes into the freezer. My discriminating tasters say that the quality of the salsa was not compromised by the use of some prepared ingredients. Now, if we could just find someone to import tortilla chips for less than nine dollars a family-size bag!
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4 comments:
Your recipe looks similar to salsa that I make. A fun alternative that has gotten rave reviews every year is a sweet-spicy salsa, which I make when the peaches and tomatoes are cheap at the farmer's market in town. Basically just substitute about 1/3 of the tomatoes with peaches. I understand you can do the same with mangoes, but should only substitute about 1/4 of the tomatoes (volume, not numbers for peaches or mangoes) b/c the taste & sweetness of mangoes is stronger.
~pam c
Yum, my friend. I can see this being a favorite in our house this summer.
Thanks,
Diane
Hi Pam,
Thanks for the idea. I'll have to give that a try later in the summer when peaches go down in price, but I have to tell you, produce in Amman has certainly become more expensive in the past few years. And, I am still using the canning jars that your mom so generously passed on to me before you moved!
I see that I need to edit my recipe to indicate that the cilantro filled a large salad bowl or mixing bowl--not an individual serving salad bowl.
I found your blog while looking for the true identity of Zabadi with cream. (I had heard from a friend that it is sour cream and I just wanted to know. We love it on our baked potatoes.) How funny to find a blogger in the city I live in! I then found your salsa recipe. I will have to try it, as I am craving it occationally, after being here in Amman for about 6 months. I can't bring myself to purchase the expensive jars.
I thoroughly enjoyed your blog. I will return to see how things go with the baseball team and to see the flowers that you find and I miss. Thanks for an enjoyable read today!
-L
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