Summer salsa verde recipe

This uncooked salsa verde is best when made just before serving for the fresh clean taste of the season. It takes only a few minutes to prep and mix in a blender.

Husk and wash 5 or 6 tomatillos (depending on size), trim and cut into chunks, and put in blender. Add flesh of one ripe avocado, one jalapeño pepper (seeds and ribs removed) and two peeled cloves of garlic. Blend until smooth and salt to taste.

A good accompaniment to grilled rock shrimp, pollo asado, fish tacos or quesadillas. Again, best when eaten freshly prepared - don't worry, put some chips out and it will disappear.

I do something similar but add whatever onion I have around and cilantro. Also, I hand mash the avocado 'cause I like a little chunkiness.

This gets away from the super fresh taste but sometimes I throw the tomatillos, jalepeno, onion & garlic on the grill with mesquite chips to get a roasted/smoky flavor. Or I use chilis in adobo to really kick it up!

That's what's great about salsa, there's a ton of variations.

It's fun to make variations.

The beauty of the recipe I posted is that it does NOT have onion and cilantro which are sort of ubiquitous flavors in salsas. This one tastes much lighter and offers more contrast when you put it out with other salsas for a round of chips. Another case of less is more.

[Sharuf]

For me, the most compelling reason for using raw tomatillos is to preserve the nice green color. Rick Bayless has demonstrated using broiled tomatillos, and that treatment does a bad number on the color.

Melanie, you should post recipes on the general topics board so people all over will notice and enjoy!

We've still got 2, almost 3 more months of summer weather out here. I didn't want to make the folks who can't get fresh tomatillos or flavorful avocados jealous. (g)

Oh! Is THAT why you're posting on SF Board? Aren't you kind, Melanie! (g)
I bot my first tomatillos under Tida/Cheryl/Alex's tutelage during our Oakland Farmer's Market tour. Came home to make salsa but all my recipes insisted I had to cook the tomatillos. Ended up combining a Jacqueline Higuera McMahan and Marion Cunningham recipe. It was good but not worth the trouble since I can buy a very good tomatillo salsa @ the grocery (Native Kjalii Foods makes several good varieties)if I don't have time to go to San Jose Tacqueria #2 in Oakland--their salsa is amazing.
Your recipe sounds a lot less time consuming so I'll give tomatillos another try.
Fun facts to know and tell: tomatillos are not tomatoes but are in same nightshade family. (If we could do Jeopardy as a team there would be no stopping us.)

Yes, indeed-y!

We're lucky to have nice firm tomatillos out here that work well for this. The acidity is much more pronounced if you don't cook 'em which balances the richness of the avo. I love the fresh zesty flavors of this uncooked salsa.

This is also a good recipe to have when you cut open one of those avocados that isn't as soft and ripe as you'd like. Just drop it into the blender with the rest of the ingredients and you transform it into something special.