I put my purple tomatillos to use and made some salsa.
Purple Tomatillo Salsa
You’ll need:
10-12 purple tomatillos
1 jalapeno
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
4-5 cloves garlic
1/2 chopped white or yellow onion
3 tablespoons cilantro
a squeeze of lime
First, husk and roast your tomatillos and jalapeno under a broiler until your pan starts to look like a gruesome crime scene.
Exhibit A:
See what I mean? Poor little tomatillos.
Then throw all your ingredients into a blender, food processor, or, my personal recommendation, a Magic Bullet. No, I didn’t actually buy it. I stole it from my parents’ house.
Something funny happened with mine that I can’t really explain. When I squeezed in the lime juice, the tomatillo salsa turned from green to purple. Then I mixed it and it went back to green. Then after a night in the fridge it went back to purple. Funny little vegetables. Wait, no … fruits??
Before you taste it, be prepared for what to expect. This unconventional salsa is sweet when it first hits your tongue. Then comes the glorious heat and the bite from the onions and garlic. You also get some of the tangy lime and cilantro flavor in there, too.
11 Comments
alice
wow your posts are so good with descriptive step by step photos! btw, is there going to be a squash blossoms post?? =)
admin
Thanks! And yes! Coming soon!
Kamran Siddiqi
This tomatillo salsa looks divine!
MyLastBite.com
I’ve never had a Purple Tomatillo. This looks fantastic!
Sara @ Our Best Bites
How gorgeous- I love it! Never seen a purple tomatillo before!
cory
Heh, nice salsa recipe, very simple–which is a good thing for salsa. If it’s too complex, it just tastes like a mouthful of kitchen.
As for the vegetable vs. fruit controversy, here’s an explanation:
ALL plants are vegetables. ALL parts of a plant are vegetable matter. ONLY the fruits of a plant are called fruits, and these can also be called seed-pods, and the term “fruit” just applies to the part of a vegetative life form that contains seeds, is usually fleshy, and can generally be eaten raw.
So you see all fruits are vegetable, not all vegetables are fruit. 🙂
Animal, vegetable, mineral. Cheers.
–C
Susan
I found some purple tomatillos as a farmers market near Portland, OR. I had no idea what they tasted like, but they were too pretty to pass up. I found your salsa recipe and gave it a shot. YUM!! Like the best sweet/tart bright fresh salsa ever.
I used a purple onion (and only 2 garlic cloves) and the salsa was the most pretty purple. Neato! The onion flavor was a little raw at first, but it mellowed nicely after a short time in the fridge.
We’re going to try growing some ourselves next year so we can make more of this! Thanks for your recipe and beautiful pictures!
admin
Thanks Susan, glad you liked it!
Jacqueline
This last week I received purple tomatillos and was determined to make salsa with them. After I googled “purple tomatillo salsa” I found your site and decided to give it a try. Unfortunately I didn’t know I was out of garlic, so I looked garlic powder equivalent, not proud of that but had to improvise. I always decided to broil my purple onion as well, some days raw onions work with my stomach and some days it doesn’t. Didn’t want to take the chance and then would have salsa I couldn’t eat! I did broil my lovely little purples just a tad too long, some of them had a nice crusty black top, but it wasn’t too bad. Threw it all in the blender and chopped all those fantastically color tomatillos into a nice cross between chunky and smooth salsa. I must say a big thank you because my salsa turned out to be the BOMB!!!!!!!!!! I will definitely be using your recipe again!
admin
Awesome! I love a little char when I’m roasting tomatoes or peppers–gives a nice smokey flavor and the cooked onions probably gave it a great depth of flavor too.
Carissa
I made this today and it was very good! It was my first time using tomatillos. Thanks for the yummy recipe!