John Jasons Early Girl Salsa Recipe

How to make it

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• Start by skinning the tomatoes. This is very easy, but takes a few minutes. Take a pot large enough to hold all the tomatoes and fill it 2/3 with water. Put on the stove and bring to a boil. While waiting for the water to boil cut out the stem end of the tomatoes with a pointed paring knife. When the water is hot turn off the heat and move the pot to the sink. Dump the tomatoes into the water, cover, and let them sit for a few minutes.
• While the tomatoes are sitting in the hot water chop the bejabbers out of the onion and the jalapeños - tiny bits about 25-50 mm. This is where a food chopper comes in handy. But if you don't have one, just use a knife. This recipe makes a salsa that is medium-hot. If you want it less picante remove some of the seeds from the jalapeños before chopping (the heat is in the seeds). Put the chopped onion and jalapeños into a saucepan and set aside.
• Peel the limes with a paring knife and put them whole into a blender. Just leave them there - we'll come back to them in a minute.
• By now the tomatoes are ready to be skinned. Use a large leaky spoon to lift them out of the boiling water and place into another large pot or bowl, then discard the water. They are too hot to handle, but use the spoon to grab a couple whose skins are already off. Put them into the blender with the limes. Puree the limes and tomatoes, and pour the liquid into the saucepan containing the chopped onion and jalapeños. Heat to boiling and then simmer a few minutes until the onions are transparent. Pour into a pot large enough to hold all the ingredients and set aside. Go have a beer while waiting for the tomatoes to cool. (Do not take this part of the instructions lightly; having the beer will enhance the flavor of the salsa. Trust me on this.)
• When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle strip off and discard the skins. Place the tomatoes into a large sieve or leaky bowl with a pot underneath to catch the juice. As you place the skinned tomatoes into the sieve or bowl, cut them through the equator and squeeze out most of the juice. This will collect in the bottom of the pot and can be saved for drinking as real natural tomato juice. (Once you taste this you will never again drink the over-salted crap in a can from the store.) You need to remove some of the juice because Early Girl is a very juicy tomato and your sauce will be too runny if you don't.
• After you have all the tomatoes in the sieve or leaky bowl with their skins removed, place into the blender. This quantity will fill the blender to 2/3 about three times. Blend each batch at the lowest speed for just a moment and stop. Push the whole tomatoes that are still on top down, and repeat. After two or three times you can just leave it running, but stop just as soon as the vortex appears. You want them severely chopped, but still with small chunks; not pureed. Add each blender-full to the large pot containing the chopped onion. jalapeños and pureed tomato-lime mix.
• Chop the cilantro into tiny pieces and add to the large pot. Add the garlic and salt, and stir to mix everything thoroughly. Let sit for a few minutes before serving.
• Yield: About seven pints. It really makes about eight pints, except that you ate a pint of it with chips and your second and third beer.
• This salsa can be stored in the refrigerator for at least a couple of weeks. It may actually last longer, but that's the longest it's ever lasted in my refrigerator without being eaten. It also freezes beautifully. And if you really like kitchen adventures, you can can it in a standard water bath canner, just as you would can whole tomatoes. The limes add enough acid to counterbalance the lack of acid in the onion and jalapeños (per FDA equivalencies for canning), so the mixture is just as safe as canning any high acid tomato.
• Adjustments:
• I use a lot of cilantro. You can cut down or leave out the cilantro if you don't like it. But then it won't be authentic and your kids will flunk Spanish.