Fermented Tomatillo Salsa
When i taste a new fermentation, my body speaks to me before my tastebuds, as the telltale of a good ferment is how it makes my body move when I taste it. Different ferments seem to affect different parts of the body with good krauts making my hips move and top kimchi conjuring more of an Elvis knee-waggle swooning response. This tomatillo salsa recipe has for me something distinctly new and different in the dance realm – an upper body “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate” kind of jiggle. I don’t make the news, i just report it. Ooh, it’s good.
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Fermentation time: 1-2 weeks (mine was 12 days)
Yield: 3 cups
Ingredients:
1 pound tomatillos
1/2 medium onion
1 jalapeno pepper
1 oz fresh cilantro (1/2 cup packed loosely)
1 T lime juice
2 cloves garlic
1/2T salt
Directions:
- Remove the paper-like husk from the tomatillos and cut them in half
- Dice all ingredients finely by hand or place into a food processor and combine until reaching desired consistency
Place ingredients into a mason jar with an airlock lid on top I find fermenting with an airlock to be best for ferments such as this where there is not a full submersion under a brine as it helps prevent mold and other growths from occurring.- You could also pack the mason jar completely full with no air space remaining at the top and loosely screw the top on to allow for pressure to escape. If you do this, place a dish under it to catch the runoff.
- In either case, wait 7-14 days and enjoy. You’ll notice a nice tang to the salsa when it’s ready.
Serving suggestions could of course be as simple as tortilla chips and salsa, but it seems a shame to not feature this more, so I’d suggest making tostadas topped with beans, avocado, diced tomato and crowned with this salsa. This tomatillo salsa recipe would also make a great substitute topping for enchiladas. Don’t bake it of course to preserve the probiotic benefit, but simply pour it on generously when serving.
Fermented salsa can be a little tricky to make, not because it’s a difficult process, but because it’s hard to be patient in waiting for something that is probably sufficiently good right away. This salsa would be fine I’m sure without the fermentation, but those alchemical days spent fermenting adds healthy probiotics, a wonderful zing to the taste and perhaps most importantly a little upper-body shimmy to your kitchen recipe dance repertoire.
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I can’t wait to try this. Coincidentally, a batch of your tomatillo kraut (http://bit.ly/17E6edU) matured last night and I served it to delighted house guests as a salsa! I guarantee that a spoonful of your tomatillo kraut on a multigrain blue corn chip with a dollop of crème fraîche (http://bit.ly/17E5XYw) will give you a brand-new kitchen dance. This batch also had just a hint of carbonation in the juice owing to my fermenting it under pressure in a fido jar. The extra zing from the carbonation gave it a wonderfully unexpected finish. I’m doing the same thing with your curtido and your ginger beet kraut (which I made with bright yellow beets and carrots instead of red beets). Those won’t finish for a few days, but we previewed them last night and they were both phenomenal as kraut-salsas.
Hey John, thanks for the idea of fermenting under pressure. I’ll perhaps give that a try too and see how that goes. Love that you are trying so many different ferments from the site. Pleases me to know that these recipes are really getting worked. If you have any suggested modifications or other ideas, please let me know. Enjoy!
I’m getting ready to go get some tomatillos to make this today at a fermenting group meeting. Will report back in a week if I remember. My husband and I love salsa and we love fermenting.
This was the first fermenting recipe I made (other than an old standby Moroccan preserved lemons). It worked! I went on to the kimchi, also great.
Mix this 50/50 with mayo for a wonderful “tartar sauce.”
Congrats on joining the world of fermenters. Nice to have you aboard. 🙂
Found a sauerkraut recipe in an old blue book, better than bagged or canned, though I love them both too, green salsa goes well on tortilla a slice of deli ham n cheese, melted w/ lettuce n salsa rolled up, kids love it…
This was so good! Thanks for sharing.
Thinking of trying this with my green tomatoes (tons on the vine still) instead of tomatillos. I did this sub in Rick Bayless’ roasted tomatillo salsa and it is delicious. Also will use as a sub in my mole verde (recipe author approved of this idea).
Question for you about fermenting though….I though that citric acid retards the fermentation process by killing the beneficial bacteria. Is that wrong? I certainly love the idea of the lime juice, but can you clarify this and how it still ferments.
Hi Susan, I personally haven’t heard or read anything about citric acid killing beneficial bacteria. If you have any references to cite, I’d be curious to learn more. Adding lime juice instantly lowers the pH significantly which certainly prevents microorganisms which can cause food poisoning to survive. I just did a test and simply adding a teaspoon of lime juice to a glass of water lowered the pH to under 3.0. At a pH level of 4.6 or less, toxins formed by the deadly organism causing botulism are inhibited.
citric acid is bad and chemical, whereas lime or lemon juice is natural and good. I would stay away from citric acid, you do not do your a favor using it for eating or drinking.
I used parsley instead of coriander because I bought the wrong one and it’s still delicious.