Britomart's Roasted Tomato Chipotle Salsa

I have two salsas I make, and this is the fussier, more annoying of the two. If you don't find cooking relaxing or fun, this is not the salsa for you. I'll post my easier one sometime soon. This is a good thing to make on a day when you have a bunch of other stuff to do around the house, too, there's a lot of downtime in between some of the steps.

This recipe began life as an attempt on my part to recreate the salsa I ate at a restaurant in Dallas, Uncle Julio's. If you are ever in the area, eat there! Fantastic margaritas & amazing salsa. Oh, and a really good, fresh guacamole they make there, as well as a marinade for their steak fajitas that's so good, some of the ingredients must be illegal substances. My attempt to recreate the salsa failed, but morphed eventually into this, which I do love, even though it began life as a failure.

I paid attention to measurements as I made it this afternoon! It was really exciting. I even measured some stuff before I threw it in. The only thing I forgot was the cumin. But I stared at it intently after adding it & after some significant medidation, am pretty sure I know the amount. Also, I was making a large batch on purpose, it would be pretty easy to halve this recipe.

• Tomatoes: enough so that you end up with 24 ounces of pureed tomato at the end. If tomatoes are out of season & the ones at your market look anemic & mealy & gross, just use canned tomatoes. Or, if you don't want to bother with the roasting & peeling, just use canned tomatoes. :-) Today I used 5 largish heirloom tomatoes & a generous handful of grape tomatoes & ended up with the 24 ounces. I don't recommend using grape or cherry tomatoes for this as the peeling takes longer (though is oddly fun - they kinda explode out of their little grapey skins), but I had some lying around that were in danger of going to waste.
• 1/4 cup, generously rounded, finely chopped cilantro*
• 1 chipotle pepper & some of the sauce from the can
• 2 TBSP lime juice (ideally fresh)
• 1 medium onion
• A few TBSP of vegetable oil
• 2 TSP chili powder
• 2 TSP cayenne powder
• 1 1/4 C sweet corn kernals (frozen is fine)
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 TBSP butter
• 2 TSP cumin
• salt to taste

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Slice your onion into quarters, place on a small baking sheet and drizzle with vegetable oil. Then sprinkle with the chili & cayenne powder. Bake in oven for 40 minutes. About halfway through, you'll want to flip the onions over. Check in occasionally, too, to make sure onion isn't drying out. There will be extra oil on the sheet, so you can use tongs or a spatula to move the onion around & redistribute the oil. Onions are done when they're soft & slightly browned. Set onions aside to cool. There should be a bit of oil & spices clinging to the sheet. Save this! Scrape this off & put in a cup.

Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees. Place tomatoes in a 13x9x2 baking pan and bake for 40 minutes. Check on tomatoes & carefully (you don't want them to burst) turn over with a spatula every 10-15 minutes. Tomatoes are done when skin is blistery & a little browned. Set aside on a plate to cool. There will be a bunch of tomatoey liquid in the bottom of the cooking pan. Save this, too! Dump into the cup that has the bit of spicy oil. As your tomatoes cool, more liquid will pool on the plate. When you notice this, add it to the cup or the reduction, depending on where you are in the process.

On a cutting board, chop up your cilantro*. Put cilantro to the side, and without cleaning the board, chop your garlic cloves very finely. Melt butter in saucepan and sautee garlic until it's soft and golden. Add tomato juice/spicy oil mixture you thought I was insane to have you save. Simmer until it becomes nice and thick. Probably a good 30-45 minutes. Add corn. Cook until corn is all happy & plump & has completely forgotten it was recently sad & frozen.

Once the tomatoes are cool (and be careful - they remain hot inside for awhile) peel away the skin & dump tomatoes into a blender or food processor. Chop roasted onions coarsely & add to tomatoes. Chop chipotle coarsely & add it to the blender, along with a couple teaspoons of its sauce. Add cilantro & lime juice. Briefly mix on lowest setting of blender/processor - no more than a minute.

Pour mixture into bowl, stir in corn mixture. Add salt to taste. You also might want to throw in more lime, cilantro, some additional hot sauce. Your call. It'll probably still be pretty warm, so cover & keep in fridge until it's cool.

If you make this salsa according to my directions above, it will be moderately hot - probably a strong "medium." So, adjust the chipotle & cayenne powder according to your heat tolerance. If you want it to be mild, I'd halve the amounts of both. If you like things really hot, you probably know better than I do how hot you want to make it. :)

* Cilantro generally comes in big bunches that are far more than you need at any given time. Consequently, much of it often goes to waste. It's one of those secret, shameful kitchen tragedies no one's comfortable talking about. Here's a solution! Whenever you get a bunch, wash & dry all of it, then finely chop all of it. Use the amount you needed & put the rest in a plastic storage container & stick in the freezer! Then, whenever you need some, you can just use some of the frozen. It will still taste fresh & lovely.

You can do this, by the way, with just about any herb, and for those of you lucky enough to have your own herb gardens, this would be a great thing to do at the end of the season before the first frost kills all your plants.