Salsa Verde

 tomatillos on the vine

 This year is the first year I tried to grow tomatillos and I had pretty good luck with them. You have to get two plants, I noticed one did not produce as well as the other, and they take a while to mature but I think it's worth it. They love dry soil so don't plant them near tomatoes, who love water. I barely watered them and surprisingly enough raccoons and opossums don't eat them so I got plenty from one plant, about 3 pounds so far.  They were also far larger that what you usually find at the grocery store in this area.
     It is now getting into fall here in Missouri, cooler weather, so I believe that it is the end of the tomatillos for now. I still had a lot, and still do, left over so I decided to make some salsa verde with them.

tomatillos being weighed

    I found this salsa verde while searching the interwebs. It seems simple enough so I gave it a go and it turned out pretty good. I did not add avocado but might for the next batch, and there will be another batch.

Freshly cut tomatillos and jalapeño

roasted and cooling

First step was to pick and weigh 1.5 pounds of tomatillos, I think I had about eleven or twelve, I was more concerned with the weight. I then rinsed and sliced them in half (with a jalapeño that I deribbed and deseeded ), heated up the broiler, and then placed them on the broiling pan. As a side note I use a Graniteware roasting pan because my last roasting pan exploded on me. I like the Graniteware because you use water in the bottom pan and cover the top of the pan to broil. Plus it is metal so it won't explode.  I broiled them for about six minutes on my highest rack, and then took them out of the oven ,flipped them over,  then broiled for another 6 minutes, and then took them out of the oven to cool. While cooking in the oven I pureed a half cup of onion, a half cup of cilantro, and 2 tablespoons of lime juice. After the tomatillos and jalapeño cooled I added them to the blender and pureed until chunky.

onion, cilantro, and lime

On the left we have the finished product, 1.5 cups of salsa verde!