Salsas for All Seasons

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Kick the gray right out of winter with flavorful, colorful salsas that are amazingly easy to create. Artful combinations of fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices unite to form a harmonious blend of flavors and colors that delight the palate and complement a variety of dishes.

The words sauce and salsa, which English borrowed from French and Spanish, originally came from the Latin word salsus, meaning “salted.” Salt is still an important ingredient in most salsas, although modern cooks often try to reduce salt intake. Most packaged chips contain more than enough salt, so the flavor remains when the chips are dipped.

Salsa in various forms has been around for hundreds of years. A neighbor of mine, who travels back and forth to Brazil, brought me an unfamiliar herb and a handful of pepper seeds that the indigenous people living deep in the Brazilian rain forest had given him. They told him that the pepper and the accompanying herb were both traditional ingredients in an ancient salsa made by their Mayan ancestors. Unfortunately, the salsa recipe didn’t accompany the seeds, but I’ve had fun trying to create this very old dish without it.

Ketchup used to hold the honor of most popular table condiment, but in recent years, salsa sales have surpassed ketchup’s, and there are literally hundreds of brands of salsa on grocery store shelves.

Many people only think of salsas made with tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, onion and garlic, but salsa doesn’t have to contain a single tomato — and many don’t. And during these winter months when it’s virtually impossible to get a flavorful tomato, that’s a major plus. Luckily, you can make delicious salsas out of a wide range of vegetables and fruits.

Zucchini salsa is a great example. This vegetable is available year-round in most supermarkets, and it combines well with a wide range of other great salsa vegetables, such as jicama, sweet bell peppers, garlic and lime. Or you can make salsa from fruits, such as apples, grapes, kiwi, strawberries, bananas, melons or mangos.

If you think it might be easier to just pop open a jar from the grocery, I would guess you have never tasted good homemade salsa. It’s not much trouble to make, and the flavor is incomparable. If you can push the button on a food processor, then you can make salsa in minutes.

TOOLS TO MAKE SALSA EASILY

Some years back, I bought a hand-cranked food processor from a demonstrator’s booth at the state fair — you know, the kind of display where the guy is slicing and dicing and amazing you with his skills while he talks nonstop over his low-wattage microphone. My first thought when I saw this man was that he had his work cut out for him, selling this “toy” food processor. It was nothing but a plastic bowl with a lid and a crank that turned a little blade inside.

Because I’m the kind of cook who always wants the food processor with the biggest motor (and who has worn out a larger commercial model and is working on the second one), I figured this toy was useless and nearly walked away.