Perfectly burnt. A fire cooking skill once mastered will bring you boundless amounts of flavour. Take our burnt salsa. All kinds of veg and citrus cooked directly in the embers of the fire until just so. Skinned, chopped and squeezed then dolloped onto your favourite something grilled.
SERVES 8
Preparation Time: none
Cooking Time: 60 min
Wood Species: Apple
Wood Type: Logs
Ingredients:
8-10 logs
6 Tomatoes
4 Onions
4 Peppers
6 Chillies
1 Bulb Garlic
2 limes
50ml Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
Prepare your fire.
Once you have a good bed of coals from the fire you are ready to cook.
All of the ingredients will be cooked directly in the embers so will remain whole and unpeeled until you have cooked them. You are essentially grilling and internally steaming all in one go, producing the most intense version of each vegetable.
You will need to maintain a fire to continue to feed the cooking area with embers. But you will probably be cooking this salsa to accompany something else so that shouldn’t be a problem.
Start with the ingredients that will take longer to cook. So first up your onions, placed directly on a flat bed of coals, raking around some more to give them a good covering. 10 minutes in you may need to start turning your onions. You want to completely blacken the skins, but stop short of burning through to the onion itself.
Next up will follow the whole garlic bulb, then peppers, tomatoes, limes and chillies at 5 minute intervals. Continue to turn the veg so no one side burns and you maintain an overall even char.
Once you arrive at the “perfectly burnt” stage remove all of your veg and put into a bowl covered with cling film or other air tight container. You want the veg to steam and cool down.
Once they’re cool enough to handle remove all of the skins and seeds from the vegetables and chop. We find it easiest to do this on a big board. Once all the veg is chopped up, add the coriander, squeeze in the limes and chop some more.
Finally add the oil, salt and pepper and bring together.
Enjoy.
