Salsa is really just sauce isn't it?
"a zingy jumble of tomato, onion, chilli, salt and acid in the form of vinegar or citrus juices." Felicity Cloake
5 roma tomatoes, seeds removed, finely diced
1 small red onion, finely diced
1/2 bunch coriander, finely chopped
small handful fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
30ml fresh lemon juice
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Combine them all in a bowl. (Neil Perry) Now how simple is that?
And I have to say that that is pretty much that. A classic salsa to my mind, contains all of those ingredients, chopped up, mixed together and served fresh. No cooking involved. And of course you can vary it to your heart's delight. Fruit - like the strawberries in my entrée the other day, can be used instead of the tomatoes, but I reckon you always need onion of some kind, citrus or vinegar, and some fresh herbs and chilli. Mango, pineapple corn and avocado seem to be popular components. A quick search of my Bento database came up with 22 recipes for salsa - a few were for salsa verde - which is not strictly what I am talking about here, and a couple were for completely different kinds of sauces, but the majority were variations on the theme. Two of the more interesting ones are shown below - the one on the left is an avocado salsa on some corn fritters and the second one is for a tomato and olive salsa on feta stuffed capsicum. They do make food look pretty don't they?
And maybe that's their prime purpose?
Now salsa means sauce in at least half a dozen languages, so technically speaking, salsa is any sauce you care to think of. However, these days, what we think of as salsa is derived from the Mexican salsa fresca. And to my mind it's not really a sauce. A sauce to me involves either cooking or blending - it's generally quite smooth and bound together with some sort of liquid. It's free-flowing. Salsa, as we know it, is more of a fresh relish or even a kind of salad - it depends how much you put on the plate really. They are "a boon for restaurateur and home cook alike - and were low in fat and high in vitamins and minerals." Sylvia Lovegren
"The lively preparations we know best as salsas ... are more in tune with our own changing habits of eating and cooking than are the sauces of classical European haute cuisine." John Willoughby
Those quotes are from a book about food fashions, - hence the 'were'. I'm not sure what period Sylvia Lovegren is talking about, but it is American so not quite the same as here. Here I would say that the Mexican boom + the health food and breakfast booms have combined to ensure the popularity of salsa. Maybe our love of barbecues is another factor. It's very much of the toss 'everything together' kind of cooking so popular with the likes of Jamie Oliver (37 recipes on his website) and Curtis Stone (just 5). Even the lovely Delia has around 20 different versions. And none of these three are particularly into Mexican food. But they are into quick and easy.
A brief little bit of history. The Incas, Mayas and Aztecs all made a kind of salsa with tomatoes, squash seeds and chilli. In 1571 Alonso de Molina called it salsa - the first known use of the word to describe it. But, as I said before, salsa really just means sauce and so actually refers to a whole range of different things.
I've rambled on enough. Not much to say really other than it is a very pleasing accompaniment to all manner of things and so simple to do, as well as being a perfect vehicle for creativity in the kitchen. For a full summary of the options when making the classic tomato based sauce, read Felicity Cloake.
"it stands or falls on the ripeness of its ingredients: sweet tomatoes, tangy spring onions, hot herbaceous chillies and aromatic coriander, all thrown into sharp relief by a zesty lime and a generous quantity of salt." Felicity Cloake
