In exactly one month, Jeff and I will start hiking South from the Canadian border of Glacier National Park. Our apartment is a wreck of towering cans of dehydrated food, boxes full of Clif bars and hundreds of ziploc bags--nearly all the calories we will be consuming for the next five months.
Some, knowing that they are soon leaving the city would spend their time visiting with friends. I took a different tack and have been taking advantage of the last few weeks with access to health care. That's right, I am spending my final weeks in the world's best city sitting in beige waiting rooms with dusty pink and teal accents. This week I've gone to the dermatologist and the oral surgeon to have troublesome pieces of myself removed.
tomatillo with husk unfurled
I hadn't planned out what to do about food after my wisdom teeth came out. I got home at four in the afternoon, having hardly eaten breakfast or lunch so I could work off a little bit of the lost afternoon. My mouth wouldn't open more than a half inch, I couldn't chew, the right side of my head had a gentle throbbing--and I was starving. I stared around at the abundance of food littering my living room and knew that I couldn't eat any of it.
Today, after eating nauseating quantities of applesauce cups and a yogurt parfait, I racked my brain for a savory food to save me from the drudgery of mush. I realized that there was a perfectly delicious soft food waiting at home for me to assemble it. I had cooked sweet potatoes and a bag of tomatillos in the fridge. I knew just the trick for my disabled mouth: mashed sweet potato with sour cream and tomatillo-jalapeno salsa.
an accidental photo that captures the feel of this meal quite well:
quick, simple, colorful, and vibrant
Tomatillo-Jalapeno Salsa
Tomatillos are a member of the nightshade family. Tomatoes and eggplants--some of my favorite plants to eat--are also nightshades. Today as I cooked up this salsa, I realized that the tomatillo falls somewhere between these two on the family continuum. It looks like a green tomato, but with a funny papery husk not unlike an overgrown version of the eggplant's topper. Because the name is so similar to tomato, most comparisons tend that way. However, the internal structure is much more akin to a round eggplant. It has those funny little seeds and the same semi-spongey texture that becomes meltingly smooth with a quick roast. Also like eggplant, the tomatillo's composition lends body to sauces. I love adding eggplant cubes to a vegetarian pasta sauce for a meaty mouthfeel. In the same way, the tomatillo features prominently in Mexican salsas, assuaging some of the heat from the ubiquitous chiles and giving the sauces structure. Tomatillos also lend a brilliant flavor. They have a distinct vegetal note, but are also quite tart when raw or barely cooked. Here, their flavor shines through, augmented by the peppers' piquancy and the gentle smoky flavor of pan-roasted garlic.
pan-roasting tomatillo slices
- 9 medium tomatillos, about the size of small clementines
- 8 cloves garlic, skin on
- 2 jalapeno peppers, roughly chopped--I seeded one and left the other with seeds. If you want to eat this salsa with chips rather than drizzled over some starchy potatoes, I recommend seeding both peppers. The capsaicin will otherwise overwhelm most palates.
- 1/4 tsp salt or to taste
- Cut tomatillos crosswise into 1/2 inch thick slices. Cook in batches in a dry skillet over medium heat until slightly browned and a little wilty but not disintegrating. Remove to a bowl to cool.
- Add garlic cloves in their skins to the hot pan with some of the later tomatillos. The skins prevent the garlic from sticking to the pan. The pan-roasted cloves virtually peel themselves.
- Transfer the roasted tomatillos, garlic, chopped peppers and salt in a food processor or blender. Process until roughly combined and there are no shockingly large chunks of jalapeno visible.
- Serve with hearty food to moderate heat or mix into store-bought salsa to make it tasty.
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