Started experimenting a little

[Sawdust]

Hey Ya'll

Started experimenting a little tonight with a hab/lime/cilantro idea and I could use a couple of tips, I made a warm salsa for now and I am just tasting it with some chips to identify any needed adjustments.
I Used:
8 roasted medium size vine ripe maters
10 Habaneros
2 Serranos
2 roasted carrots
1/2 a bunch of Cilantro
1 medium bulb worth of cloves of Garlic roasted
1/2 of a white onion
1 tsp of ground Cumin
1.5 tbp of Kosher Salt
10 turns of fresh black peppercorns on a coarse set peppermill
2 Limes worth of juice squeezed and used the pulp from a half lime in there

I like salty my self but then again I probably need to cut down and others might NOT like the salty...

So what am I missing..it tastes a lil twangy and I am thinking I should have used less lime, it definitely has a good solid heat t o it and is good but I feel it is missing something would adding sugar offset the acidity and if I did and it did work out would this be something I could safely preserve with sugar in it.

Should I use vinegar to stabilize the shelf life and if so what would be the ration to use for a blender full of sauce. (I have some white wine vinegar on hand now)

I f I wanted to un-salsa this and make hot sauce would I need to puree it more, boil it and strain it?

Sorry to be asking so many noob questions but I am a noob for now..

Thanx
FXC

 

[salsalady]

Hi Sawdust,

Making an assumption that only the roasted vegetables are cooked and the onion, etc are fresh...you basically have a fresh pico-de-gallo style salsa. Fresh salsas are usually eaten within a couple days of being made so preserving with an acid (vinegar, lime lemon etc) is not an issue and you can reduce the lime to your taste (on the next batch) or add some sugar to this batch to take the edge off the tang.

Once you look at preserving, then you need to look at pressure cooker canning (for a chunky sauce) or cooking/blender-puree/bottle in hot sauce bottles. There are quite a few threads about bottling in the Making Hot Sauce and also the Bottling, Packaging thread.

It's really hard to give an estimate of how much vinegar to put into a blender of "stuff" to make it safe. Every item has a different pH, and unless you do pH testing, there's no way to know if it's at a safe pH level.

Here's a good hot sauce recipe link, and that forum also has salsa recipes. Just browsing through the recipes will give you a good idea of what others are doing.
http://www.pepperfool.com/recipe_home.html

Have fun with your sauce! It looks good for a start, so just tweak it to your tastes.

good luck,
salsalady

 

[Sawdust]

Thanx SalsaLady, that is some very good information..

I started to saute the onions in butter but then I thought in my gut no that would not be good, and I then I thought about Olive Oil and said no to that because I am afraid of future rancidity.

How does that work? If you roast things like peppers and veggies on a grill with Olive oil is it not a good practice? If you want to preserve a sauce made from them and give it a shelf life.

Thanx for the help but thanx for the mentoring and insight :}

FXC

 

[Prehensile]

I like to add Sweet Red or Orange Peppers to my Salsa, Lime Basil adds some fun, Adobo is a good Latin "season all" that many people enjoy in their food. Salsa never lasts long enough to worry about bacteria

 

[salsalady]

Good Morning, Sawdust,

I have not worked with roasted vegetables other than garlic. I know for cooking on the grill everything gets oil, S&P. etc. I've seen Fire-Roasted tomatoes at the store, so maybe when I'm there this morning, I'll check out the label to see what it says.

I've seen other recipes include oils and then they are blendered and hot packed, so I'm guessing it would work, I've just never made anything with oil myself. Sorry, not much help on that.
edit- actually, I do have a sauce made with garlic roasted in olive oil, but the oil is drained off the cloves so the amount of oil in the recipe is very small.


Here's some preserving links. If you are not familiar with canning and processing, I'd encourage you to follow an established approved recipe from Ball or one of the extension services. I'll see what I can find later for recipes.
http://nchfp.uga.edu...mato_intro.html

http://www.freshpres...g.com/home.aspx

http://cru.cahe.wsu....395/PNW0395.pdf


salsalady

 

[Dyce51]

I use olive oil all the time when I make sauces. as long as you process properly and your ph is all right you'll have no problem with useing the olive oil.