I’m not much of a dancer, but I got plenty of salsa in this weekend. Only instead of the dance floor, all my moves were in the kitchen.
Motivated by my children’s sudden love of all things salsa and almost complete disregard for what’s in it (or so I thought), I jumped at the chance to do some salsa experimenting.
Using almost all in-season and local ingredients (except the limes and pineapple), I chose four recipes all featuring one star ingredient: radishes, peaches, grilled pineapple, and tomato.
So which did my kids enjoy the most? I was floored that they skipped past the sweeter peach and pineapples salsas in favor of the radish salsa. Their only complaint was that it didn’t have any tomatoes. So I ended up mixing the radish salsa with a traditional tomato-based salsa. That was the combo that had us using chips to scrap up every last drop.
Finally! I’ve found something to do with a bumper crop of radishes.
Here are the results:
Radish Salsa
Over at Mark Bittman’s food blog, there’s this recipe for radish salsa. If you’ll follow the link, you’ll see it calls for 2 cups of chopped radish. Yes. Two cups. That’s actually quite a few radishes. Luckily, my daughter had way too much fun harvesting radishes at her school garden the other day, so we were pretty flush.
The salsa had a very nice flavor. I did heed his advice and added more salt and lemon juice than the recipe called for. It also helps to let this one sit a bit and let the flavors mix before serving. The three boys plus my husband tried this and all liked it OK. But they devoured it when I mixed it with some traditional tomato-based salsa.
I also enjoyed this as a salad topping.
Peach Salsa
My son, after discovering that he likes salsa, even with a bit of heat, went on a tasting spree at our Farmers Market the other day. His favorite by far was the peach salsa from Stover’s Farm [He’s also a big fan of their apple butter.]
We tried this recipe from Two Peas in Their Pod. This was a super easy recipe to pull together. And it was wonderfully sweet thanks to the fully ripened peaches. It would be great served with fish tacos or a chicken dish. I really liked this recipe, but the kids weren’t so impressed. Unlike the Stover’s version, this doesn’t have tomatoes. By this point, I could see that without tomatoes, my kids don’t believe it’s actually salsa.
I may mix this with tomatoes for them or just polish it off myself.
Grilled Pineapple & Pepper Salsa
This recipe for grilled pineapple salsa from Serious Eats was the most time consuming yesterday because of the grilling and pineapple prep involved. The results were worth every minute, even though my children have yet to fully appreciate this one.
The flavors of the grilled pineapple, red pepper and jalapeno are a wonderful combination. The lime juice, onion and cilantro do a nice job balancing out the sweetness from the fruit. No surprises, my kids wondered where the tomatoes were. They were also pretty full of salsa at this point.
I’ll definitely make this again, especially for a summer party and cookout. Like the peach salsa, this would be great alongside fish or chicken or a teriyaki dish.
Tomato & Cucumber Salsa
Finally, the tomato salsa. Only this one didn’t turn out so hot. The tomatoes I picked up at the Farmers Market weren’t quite ripe enough, so the cucumber and onion only further watered out the flavor. I’ll give this one a try when the tomatoes ripen a bit more.
For now, it’ll be mixed with the radish salsa.
Virtual Farmgirl 