Home-made salsa, part 1

One of the goals I've set for myself to complete before I die is to make the perfect salsa. Now, I understand that can be fairly subjective since people have different preferences and tastes, so this will be my perfect salsa. I can't find anywhere in stores where they sell a smooth salsa. Most of them are chunky and proclaim that fact with gusto. So if I want a salsa I truly enjoy, it'll have to be one I create.

On that thought, I decided today that I might as well start working on my perfect salsa. I'd never made any before but I knew what I wanted it to be: smooth and thick, not runny, with plenty of lime and cilantro, and without onions or peppers.

This is just my starter recipe and will change each time I make it until it has been perfected. It may take a while, but I'm sure each effort will taste a little bit better than the last, though this batch was fairly tasty and very addicting. Beginner's luck, I'm sure.

So here's what I came up with:

4 Roma tomatoes

2 tomatillos

1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste

3 tablespoons cilantro, stems and leaves

2 teaspoons chopped, seeded jalapeno

2 cloves garlic

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

Juice of 1/2 lime

1 teaspoon salt

Few grinds pepper

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon olive oil

Peel tomatoes by dropping them in boiling water for 1 minute, and then plunging into a bowl of cold water. Skins should slide right off. Cut out stem part, quarter, and place in blender. Blend tomatoes until smooth. Add tomatillos and rest of ingredients, one at a time, blending well after each addition. (With the jalapenos, use gloves while cutting and don't touch your eyes or they will burn terribly. Also, the seeds are the hottest part, so add them or leave them out depending on how spicy you want it.) Pour salsa into saucepan and cook over medium heat, about 10 minutes, or until sauce thickens slightly.

For next time, I think I'll leave out the oil, sugar and tomato paste. Unfortunately, it had a little too much flavor of the paste. So instead I'll add more tomatoes and tomatillos, probably 2 more of each, add some more cilantro and maybe some more lime juice, about a whole lime instead of just half. It also didn't taste at all like I put in jalapeno, so definitely more of that, maybe 2 tablespoons.

I'd love to hear suggestions on how to improve my salsa since this was my first effort. You're welcome to try the recipe and tell me what you did to make it better.

This is the first time I've tried to create my own recipe from scratch. (Well, I did look in other cookbooks for ideas of how much of each ingredient to add, but it was definitely my own creation.) Editing cookbooks all day long has given me the idea to start writing down what I create so that maybe one day I'll be able to publish my own cookbook.