Culinary School New York

I’ve made this recipe a few times and it has worked out great, it is based on a recipe of Rick Bayless who is probably the best Mexican influenced chef in the U.S.

Ingredients:

- 12 ounces (2 medium-small round or 4 or 5 plum) ripe tomatoes
- Fresh serrano chiles to taste (roughly 3 to 5, 1/2 to 1 ounce total, or even more if you like it really picante), stemmed
- A dozen or so large sprigs of cilantro
- 1 large garlic clove, peeled and very finely chopped (optional)
- 1 small (4-ounce) white onion
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
- Salt, about 3/4 teaspoon

I roughly chop all the ingredients, except the onion, and put them in a blender. Blend these ingredients well but not too much. Finely chop the onion and rinse in cold water. Add the onion to the mixture in the blender and give it a few pulses to get everything blended together. The reason to keep the onion separate is that it will get sour if blended. Of course you can use a food processor for the ingredients except for the onion. All of these you can adjust for taste. I have been using plum tomatoes but will try larger tomatoes because I think I’m getting too much flavor from the skins of the tomatoes.

Refrigerate for at least an hour, the longer the better.