Being married to the spiciest Mexican on the planet, my cooking skills have greatly expanded to a wide variety of things. However, I don't have as spicy of a palate as he does, so there has had to be some good old marital compromise. I have been hankering for some salsa verde lately and wanting to avoid as much as I can from a jar or can, I decided to invent my own.
Salsa verde is pretty basic and there are probably a million variations under the Aztec sun; but for us, this recipe I recently formulated under the Texas sun, is a new favorite. It pleases both the spicy and non spicy eaters in the family (i.e. 3 littles who can't quite grasp the definition of salsa, let alone dare touch it to their tongue.)
I washed and quartered about six of these babies and threw them in my blender.
Tomatillos can never do a tex-mex recipe wrong, IMO.
Then I cut one of these bad boys in half and threw that in with the tomatillos.
Then I got really brave and decided to throw in the other half.
Oh yeahhhhh.
I washed and used about half a bushel of cilantro, and again into the blender.
Half an onion
Your spice. I chose jalapeño, but you could easily use a Serrano pepper tambien.
Depending on how spicy you want it, use it with seeds, no seeds, or a few seeds.
I chose the few seeds option and used half of the pepper.
2 cloves of garlic.
(PAUSE: A lot of people like to stove top cook their tomatillos and garlic and onion and let them get soft, but not me. I am not a softy. Do you know how GOOD garlic is for you? But as soon as you start cooking it, it loses some of its health benefits. So I just do it all straight to the blender and forgo the stove. What a rebel.)
Spinach
Who woulda thought that I would ever recover from the smell of cooked spinach growing up? But I did. And now this superfood is one of the staples in my cooking. I use it for a lot of hidden goodness for my kids. There is no taste when you use it raw (I cannot emphasize enough how much I despise plain cooked spinach. Blech.), so it gets used a lot around here. I used probably two big handfuls for this recipe and tossed it all into the blender.
Chicken stock.
I used probably 1/4 cup (I never measure anything, which is why I rarely post recipes.) only because I wanted this to be a little more liquidy. You can choose to omit this if you want. Heck, you can do whatever you want because I am not the boss of the salsa verde.
Oh yeah, throw in a tisp (aka teaspoon. I am just quoting the fairies from Sleeping Beauty)
of Salt AND Cumin. Or more. or less. Whatever you like.
You can do the same thing with a little bit of sugar. My mexi-nugget likes sugar and spice. (and everything nice.)
Also squeeze the juice out of a half of lime. That just gives it that little somethin' extra.
Mix it all in your blender. It's gonna get pretty green.
(Spanish lesson for the day. Verde = Green. Thus, the name Salsa Verde.)
Let it get nice and blended.
And Voila (look at me being tri-lingual today.)
You can use this for a chip dip, salad dressing, a marinade, or even add avocados to it for a real good dip or dressing. (Yesterday was Guacamole day, did you know that?! I believe Avocados will be what we eat in Heaven. They are soooo good.)
We used the salsa last night for some good old chicken een-cheel-adas.
I poured some of the salsa into a bowl with chicken, cumin, and shredded cheese and mixed it up with a spoon. While I warmed up the tortillas, I coated a baking dish with coconut oil (or butter. But not Pam. Never Pam.). Then when I had about 10 tortillas ready, I dished about a half a cup-to a cup of the chicken mixture, rolled it up, and put it in the dish. When they were all in there, I poured some of the salsa over the tortillas and sprinkled with cheese. I covered with tinfoil and baked them for 20 minutes at 350. Serve with a nice rice dish (another recipe for another day) and your family will go ga-ga. Actually, my husband and son went ga-ga. My other two littles thought they were being spiced to death. (Note to self, not so much salsa verde on their enchilada next time.)
When I was done with the enchiladas, I had this much left over and just put it in the freezer for another meal or dinner party in the futuro.
Feliz Eating!
Salsa Verde
Prep time 5 mins
6 tomatillos washed and quartered
half a bunch of cilantro
half an onion
1 bar of cream cheese
2 handfuls of spinach
2 cloves of garlic
1/2-1 seeded or seedless pepper of your choice (we use Jalapeño)
1 +/- tsp salt
1 +/- tsp sugar (can be omitted)
1 +/- tsp cumin
1/4 c chicken stock (can be omitted if you don't want it too liquidy)
Juice from 1/2 lime
Blend together
Use immediately, or for chips and salsa, a BBQ marinade, guacamole, or simply freeze for future use.
