I have made kachumbari for years (an uncooked “salsa” recipe that, to be fair, is tasty and fresh…)
but this recipe gets me so close to proper jarred salsa that I now make a few batches a week, and crave it by the hour.
Cooked Shamba Salsa
12 peeled, chopped, roma tomatoes*
2 cloves garlic
1/8 cup lime juice (fresh-squeezed and strained for seeds)
1 tbsp. salt
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
¼ tsp. cumin
1 red, 1 white, 1 yellow onion (or all red, if you have to choose) chopped
2 hot peppers (jalapeno), deseeded and finely minced
2 tbsp. dried cilantro
*PEELED tomatoes are the key to any good tomato based recipe, in my experience; Soups, curries, red sauces, and – well – salsa. It is actually quite easy to peel a tomato with a good veggie peeler (which is what I do,) but you can also drop them in boiling water for a few seconds to cause the peels to separate from the fruit enough to pull the peels away. Whatever you do, don’t leave those peels on. They do make a difference.
Mix everything together in a stock pot and cook it down for about 6 or 7 minutes (just check that the onions have softened, and that should be long enough.) I make two or three batches at a time, and then freeze them in old jars, but canning would be optimal… then you can give them as gifts with these:
Tortilla (Chips)
*disclaimer* these will taste nothing like the corn chips you buy at the market, because they are rolled from wheat flour. But they are what I can make here and they are delicious, crisp and buttery.
4 cups flour
1 tbsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
2/3 cup melted shortening
1 1/3 cup milk
Melt the shortening and milk together. Mix separately 3 cups of the flour with salt and powder , then stir together with the melted ingredients. Dump onto a floured surface and kneed in the remaining cup of flour. Separate into golf-ball sized portions and roll out into round tortillas. Brown both sides in an ungreased, hot skillet.
Now you have tortillas! Make burritos! Enchiladas! Quesadillas! Or… chips. Here’s how.
Take 4 tortillas and layer them in a stack. Cut them, pie-style, into triangles. Fry them in about an inch of oil, both sides, until just browning (they get too dark FAST so watch them carefully!) Drain on a paper bag or towel – then serve with Shamba Salsa.
Then eat it for breakfast, like I do.
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