Make This Strawberry Salsa Before the End of the Season
I don’t have Hispanic blood. I come from glow-in-the-dark Russia, but I’m a serious Mexican food snob. I spent thirty years in Arizona, where we understood Mexican food as a whole culinary ecosystem beyond tacos. Silvana Salcido Esparza ‘s exquisite Gran Reserva can be balanced with a 2am burrito from any Berto’s restaurant. I mourn the people who have never had the chance to taste the ambassador and elotes available in the Valley, and after dining in some very trendy places, I would still call a midnight Sonoran dog , harvested from a tent in the parking lot, a unique ideal meal.
So it’s no surprise that I’m still constantly discovering new aspects of Mexican cuisine – five years ago I found La Santisma – a disarming place in Central Phoenix with a dizzying menu. The salsa bar is like a great acid trip: a rainbow of traditional tomato and tomatillo-based options, complemented by jicama salsa, pecan salsa, strawberry salsa and 20 other options that will send you to the bar every five minutes to try something new. . I’ve been thinking about this strawberry salsa for years.
My adopted home, Portland, isn’t the Mecca for great Mexican food where my snobbery comes in, but we have something Phoenix doesn’t have: Strawberry Hood. These small, sweet June jewels have a very limited lifespan. Blink and you’ll be missing out on a three-week harvest season, and they only last about 24 hours in your fridge before molding. The hoods are legendary here at PDX ( I wish it wasn’t intentional ) and the news of their arrival flooded Reddit, Twitter and text messages: “THE HOODS ARE IN”.
Picking strawberries is tedious and processing them is a pain in the butt that I often let go for too long. Last year I looked at the last of the berries. They were too far away to freeze, but I had absolutely no intention of making jam on a 115-degree day. So I grabbed a pastry knife and mixed the berries with the homemade Hai Phong sauce, let it ferment overnight and made the most delicious salsa I’ve ever made. But because he depended on fresh strawberries, he was fleeting. When Lifehacker Senior Food Editor Claire Lower and I were picking a strawberry field this year , slicking juice on our fingers, I mentioned salsa to Claire, who promptly asked, “Do you want to write about it?” This recipe is not fermented, but it’s great.
strawberry salsa
- 2 pints strawberries
- 1 red onion
- 2 red bell peppers
- 1 orange bell pepper
- 5 banana peppers
- 3/4 cup strawberry vinegar
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 dash Worcestershire sauce
This recipe makes about 4 cups of salsa. To make it reproducible, and since I accidentally made this year’s Huy Fong sauce inedibly spicy, I started with sweet peppers instead. You will also need ripe strawberries. If you buy strawberries from the grocery store, leave them on the counter in the sun long enough for them to turn a nice red color, which usually takes about a day. Then cut off all the white parts. You only need the red part of the berry. Break up the rest of the food just enough to go into the food processor. Grind pepper and onion together until coarsely chopped. Add half the strawberries and stir again until they come together. Strawberries will turn into pink foam. Add salt, Worcestershire, vinegar, and last berries and beat quickly once or twice. The second batch of berries will still have some body. Now leave it in the fridge at least overnight.
Some notes: You don’t need strawberry vinegar – any vinegar will do. But since you now have a lot of strawberry greens, make some strawberry vinegar by tossing it in a bottle with a little white wine vinegar and you’ll have it next year. You also don’t have to use the same pepper mixture every time—adjust it to suit your level of spiciness. Try to stay within the red/orange color array (like red jalapenos) to keep that gorgeous color. If you’re a weakling, skip the Huy Fong sauce and stick with the bell pepper. Worcestershire sauce may seem odd, but it adds a touch of umami that really brings it all together.
And now the best news of all: it freezes superbly. As a joke, I tossed half a cup of my precious salsa into Tupperware and into the freezer, and left it to thaw on the countertop this morning. It was still great at room temperature. And that means I’ll be eating Hood Berry Salsa in January, sipping margaritas from under 12 blankets in front of the heater, and dreaming of strawberry season.