I Did It.

[Doc]

I have finally perfected Salsa Muerte.

No, I wont tell you what is in it... But I can tell you if you ate it, it would probably either kill you out right or make you wish you were dead.

It has habenaros in it. Red Savina Habaneros. Along with some peppers that came from Africa. I have been experimenting with vidalia onions too.

It is the perfect blend of sweet and heat. I find it delicious, and it has been adapted to my taste buds.

Unstoppering the little red glass chili out of the glass bottle I store it in will cause your eyes to burn uncontrolably, your nose will run, and your lungs will burn. I have to eat this stuff out of doors because the fumes could seriously harm the animals in my home.

One bite is enough to even make me raise one grizzled eyebrow in alarm. I think I can actually feel my dreadlocks curling up away from my skull to get away from the heat. Going down the hatch is only the beginning of your troubles... You had best have a stainless steel bunghole.

I have been dabbling with salsa for most of my adult life. Salsa Muerte came to life when I was younger and poorer, and I was asked to bring something to a community dinner. Being the delightfully ethnic person I was on a budget, I brought salsa, something most of the ketchup and mustard eating crowd hadn't heard of. (This was the 70s) There was a lot of strange looks, sniffs, and odd remarks. When their manhood was questioned, people dug in with fresh homemade tortilla chips. (Also made by me)

The screaming started and would not end. At first, I thought I had done something wrong, so I tried a bite and everything seemed just fine to me. In between screams and heavy breathing people kept shouting "Murder!" over and over for some odd reason. The salsa certainly didn't seem hot to me... But to those poor people it must have felt like licking the sun. Some folk were talking turns licking the ice crust out of the freezer, a couple of poor souls were drinking milk (Which curdled in their mouth) and one person correctly grabbed the yogurt to put the fire out.

I received a lot of angry words over the next few days about the after effects of said attempted murder by salsa.

Since then, I have perfected the recipe. I now consider it to be perfect.

[[wcip]Angel]

And will you attempt to share this murder weapon with the rest of us, or are you just toying with ut?

edit:

No, I wont tell you what is in it

Apparently not. So what's the point with the thread, Doc? (Other than to bragg and tempt.. :P)

[Doc]

And will you attempt to share this murder weapon with the rest of us, or are you just toying with ut?

edit:
Apparently not. So what's the point with the thread, Doc? (Other than to bragg and tempt.. :P)
[right][snapback]82346[/snapback][/right]

No, not bragging... That's not it.

Ever done something where you felt so satisfied that you just had to tell somebody because you felt all good and bubbly inside?

I dunno. I may consider one day bottling this stuff up and selling it online or something. I do believe it would have to come with a warning label however.

God never meant for nothing to be this hot. I feel like I have live electric eels writhing around inside my lips. Haven't touched the stuff in hours but the burning has not subsided. I have found something that has made me say mercy, but is still delicious and is more than just base heat, which is what a lot of these gimmicky sauces and salsas are. Pure cap, while blisteringly hot, doesn't have much flavour. And those Ass Kickin Mule products and Dave's Insanity stuff tastes like rancid ass.

I found the perfect mix of fire roasted veggies, the right oil, sweet, and thickness.

The burning has not subsided in the slightest. Whatever I did, this batch has staying power. Damn.

[Zafarium]

You give, yes? Me buy? Yes? Yes? Ten dolla? Yes? Yes?

[whyBish]

Congrats!

You don't need any more advertising though, I'm ready to buy :P

[Doc]

Start the journey your self and find your own spicy nirvana.

What you need.

Some cast iron cookware. Nothing, and I mean nothing sears better than cast iron. You are going to want this for fire roasting your veggies. Also, a wood burning stove is a plus, but not required. Some woods do contain flavours and smells that are nice though. You will want to burn your veggies black. Not completely black, but nicely toasted. This is important as it brings out flavours and carmelizes the veggies. Always roast them whole and pulverise them later.

GOOD oil. I don't mean that 9 dollar bottle of olive oil you see in the grocery store. It tastes ok, and if you can't taste the difference any way, go ahead and get it. Some people have sophisticated tastes. Find a good import catalog or online site, and get proper olive oils from other countries.

Never, ever, what so ever, let anything metal other than cast iron touch your salsa fixings. No stainless steel bowls, no steel spoons, etc. NO plastic either. These bleed flavours. And metalic tasting salsa tastes like ASS. I have a bowl, a masher, and a spoon all made from wood that I use expressly for this purpose. And store your salsa in a glass bottle with a glass stopper. I have a set of glass bottles with little glass chili peppers for stoppers.

Use fruit! Fruit is sweet. Some pineapple can go a long way in creating a pleasant taste. Sweet and heat go together. Also, I find that sugar causes problems in salsa, but a lot of recipes call for it. I use honey. I find that it sticks to the tongue in a most pleasant way and really allows the burn to really sink in. Sugar also makes the salsa break down and become watery and runny faster. It will spoil quicker. Honey actually preserves the salsa for a bit, keeps it thick, and generally does good things. Fruits can also contain your much needed acid. Like limes. And pineapple.

Dare to be exotic. I have made a batch of salsa on a couple of occasions that used roasted eggplant. Not only did it burn... But it gives that pleasant tingly sensation to your mouth that eggplant does. It was most enjoyable.

Grow your own cilantro. Compost the soil. (I use coffee grounds! ) Love and nurture the plant. It will give you so much in return.

Peppers. Grow your own. Or import them. I do both.

Start off simple. A couple of tomatoes, some peppers, some garlic, a Vidalia onion, etc, placed in a cast iron dutch oven and drizzled with olive oil. Roast over open flames for a bit, checking ever so often. Wait till there are black spots all over your veggies, but they are not completely burnt. Make sure you flip and roll them around a bit. (With a wooden spoon) Smash them. Add your sweet. Add your acid. (I use lime juice. Mostly.) Allow it to sit for a while and the flavours to seep together. Try it and see what it does for you. You can add a touch of bitter to enhance the sweet. Like grating your lime peel into your salsa. Add seasonal fruits and such, like raspberries or blueberries.

DO NOT EVEN TRY TO CAN YOUR SALSA. YUCK. Canned salsa tastes like ass. Make it fresh for crying out loud.

Serve it to people every chance you get. You will know you have done it right when you enter the room with your glass bottle and terra cotta salsa bowl and suddenly people vanish mysteriousy, leaving you all alone with your precious salsa.

Oh, that reminds me. Invest in a terra cotta salsa bowl. No plastic, no metal. And DO NOT WASH YOUR TERRA COTTA BOWL WITH DISH SOAP! Always clean it out with boiling water. Terra cotta "seasons." Hitting it with dish soap will ruin it, just like dish soap ruins cast iron. After you are done cleaning your terra cotta bowl, wipe it down with a clean cloth with some sort of sweet oil just like you would do with cast iron.

There. This should give you a major head start in making real salsa. In no time you should be able to start making salsa that will make grown men weep.

[whyBish]

Start the journey your self and find your own spicy nirvana.
[right][snapback]82382[/snapback][/right]

Unfortunately, the required ingredients aren't too fond of growing themselves this close to the Antarctic :P

[Doc]

Unfortunately, the required ingredients aren't too fond of growing themselves this close to the Antarctic  :P
[right][snapback]82429[/snapback][/right]

You poor fellow.

You know... Invest in a grow lamp, some large half barrel gardening pots, and a free space by a window. Buy the rest in a grocery store.

You can grow peppers, cherry tomatoes, and other veggies indoors if you have to. Still tastes better than store bought. If your home is to small to accomodate a pot garden, throw out your tv or something.

[Gurnsey]

You poor fellow.

You know... Invest in a grow lamp, some large half barrel gardening pots, and a free space by a window. Buy the rest in a grocery store.

You can grow peppers, cherry tomatoes, and other veggies indoors if you have to. Still tastes better than store bought. If your home is to small to accomodate a pot garden, throw out your tv or something.
[right][snapback]82436[/snapback][/right]

I can just imagine going in to the hardware store, asking for a heat lamp.

"What do you want it for?"

"Oh, for my pot garden!"

[Rhydderch Hael]

... Peppers. Grow your own. Or import them. I do both. ...[right][snapback]82382[/snapback][/right]

"Grown deep in the jungle primeval, by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum..."

That thought echoed through my head as I read this thread.

[Mithrandir]

I have found something that has made me say mercy, but is still delicious and is more than just base heat, which is what a lot of these gimmicky sauces and salsas are. Pure cap, while blisteringly hot, doesn't have much flavour. And those Ass Kickin Mule products and Dave's Insanity stuff tastes like rancid ass.[right][snapback]82348[/snapback][/right]

I think this is my biggest complaint against salsas. A local Mexican joint does a salsa taste testing the first Sunday every month, usually with 100+ salsas available, and for the most part they all just taste like a gluttonous dung beetle. It seems like those rare salsas that actually taste pretty good just aren't hot.

Green Mountain Gringo has been my salsa of choice for the past year or so. It doesn't blast your taste buds, but is quite tastey.

[Doc]

I think this is my biggest complaint against salsas. A local Mexican joint does a salsa taste testing the first Sunday every month, usually with 100+ salsas available, and for the most part they all just taste like a gluttonous dung beetle. It seems like those rare salsas that actually taste pretty good just aren't hot.

Green Mountain Gringo has been my salsa of choice for the past year or so. It doesn't blast your taste buds, but is quite tastey.
[right][snapback]82496[/snapback][/right]

No offense. I am sure you like it. But it is in a jar. It has been canned. It has a metal lid.

That's disgusting. It might be tastey to you... But any real flavour it once had at some time has been completely destroyed by the process of canning. And the delightful tinny flavour of metal has contaminated the whole jar. :o

Don't mind me. I am a picky old fart.

[Ashock]

Some famous achievements:

Michelangelo - David

Leonardo - Mona Lisa

Shakespeare - Hamlet

Tolstoy - War and Peace

Homer - The Illiad

Einstein - Theory of Relativity

Beethoven - 5th

Doc - Salsa


Already, 10 posts on that and none about the others.....


Conclusion - no wonder Americans are so ignorant and fat!




-A

[jahcs]

Doc - Salsa

Already, 10 posts on that and none about the others.....
Conclusion - no wonder Americans are so ignorant and fat!
-A
[right][snapback]82535[/snapback][/right]

Salsa is actually quite healthy and usually non-fattening.

And the artists you've chosen are not know for their artistry in the kitchen. ;)

[Doc]

Some famous achievements:

Michelangelo - David

Leonardo - Mona Lisa

Shakespeare - Hamlet

Tolstoy - War and Peace

Homer - The Illiad

Einstein - Theory of Relativity

Beethoven - 5th

Doc - Salsa

Already, 10 posts on that and none about the others.....
Conclusion - no wonder Americans are so ignorant and fat!

-A
[right][snapback]82535[/snapback][/right]

To be fair, salsa is nearly a perfect food.

Depending on what is used, it is nearly or completely fat free. It is loaded with vitamins and nutrients of all kinds. When there is fat involved, it is the right kind of fat that the body needs.

In my life, I am fixated on a few tastes. Salsa being one of them. I am still trying to find a few other perfect tastes. (Perfect to me that is.)

Food is life. It's fuel. Lately, I have thought more about what goes into my body. I have nearly become a vegetarian, which is an odd state for me. I have almost gave up eating fried chickens and all the fatty foods I would eat. Having life threatening cancer twice has changed how I view food. Now, it's more than eating. It's a weapon. It's a source of health. I have been cracking books open and reading online about health factors of some foods, like the veggies that go into salsa (and guacamole) for example. I dare say if people spent more time eating salsa (and guacamole) and less time eating the other crap they eat, there wouldn't be so many fat lardy asses.

I dug out my old cast iron wok (still perfectly seasoned) and I have been cooking more Asian style food lately. Even been experimenting with tofu, which is something I said I would never do. Soy is an amazing substance actually. I have reached that magical age where I no longer give a #$%& what I used to think about what I would never do. I want to live a good long time damnit... And food seems like a way to do that. I am back to practicing yoga again. I am in better shape and strength then I have been in years. I can stand on my hands again. I can walk on my hands again. (Which is pretty scary for others while I am kilted) I can even jump up and down on my hands again, but I am still falling over when I do that. I haven't felt this good in years... And I have dug out every useless tidbit about food I know and then some to make some effort in making my self feel even better. I can even take a few more steps then I usually do with out my cane on my gimpy leg. I can pick my wife up and haul her around over my shoulder like a cave man. I have even dug out my kendo wooden practice swords and have been standing on a post sunk in the yard on my one good leg and going through old forgotten motions. Just like with guns, my hands still know their business. The mind may have forgot, but the hands have long memory.

There is hope for this old fellow.

[Hammerskjold]

>Salsa is actually quite healthy and usually non-fattening.


Yeah, but I'm guessing he was talking about what goes with the salsa. Those corn chips can add up pretty fast. (And cream, various cheeses, for people who likes the 'deluxe' treatment.)

[Doc]

>Salsa is actually quite healthy and usually non-fattening.

 
  Yeah, but I'm guessing he was talking about what goes with the salsa.  Those corn chips can add up pretty fast.  (And cream, various cheeses, for people who likes the 'deluxe' treatment.)
[right][snapback]82547[/snapback][/right]

My "corn chips" are fresh made.

I use mesa. I use a bit of water. Some sea salt. A squirt of lime. I press out the tortilla and drop it on to a cast iron griddle on the stove till it's just right as a tortilla. I'll make a stack of these, cut them into eights, and lightly fry them in some sunflower oil. No harmful fat at all. And that's if I want chips. I like warm flatbread. Sops up the juice better.

You assume to much. I make pretty much everything I eat from base materials. Scratch. I am one picky fart. I am also a stingy miserly bastard. I refuse to pay for a bag of corn tortilla chips for a couple of bucks when I can make the same thing, only better, and healthier, for PENNIES. A couple of pennies worth of mesa, salt, and lime makes a big heap of hot fresh corn tortilla chips. It's maybe an hour worth of work.

As for the other things... If I want something creamy on my chips, I will get an avocado, smash it, get more lime juice, some lemon juice, and drop in some salsa. And smash it till I have guacamole. I'll spread this over some flat bread and I am a happy man. Or take two flatbreads, spread guacamole on one, and garbanzo bean spread on the other, and press them together to make a sammich.

I've gone from making biscuits and cinnamon rolls and cheese danish every morning for breakfast to eating a lot more flatbread and salsa for breakfast. I am actually gaining some weight and keeping it... Which is what I desperately needed to do. I was about 20 to 30 pounds short of being my ideal weight. It kept going back and forth. I'd gain it, and lose it. Cancer has been a real bitch on my body. I can't explain why I gained, and am now keeping, the weight I have by switching my diet around, but I have. Some of it might be muscle mass from my workouts. I honestly don't know. I don't feel as fatigued any more as I did. I still aint sleeping better. I am still going in thirty two hour cycles. About 30 hours awake, and maybe two hours of sleep. But the food keeps me going. I haven't slept normal since God knows when.

But the diet change is working. I feel tons better than I did.

[Hammerskjold]

>You assume to much.

I was talking about Ashock's comment, not yours.

>I make pretty much everything I eat from base materials. Scratch.

That's nice, of course maybe I wasn't clear that I wasn't talking about what you personally do. For most people they don't make things out of scratch that often. Either from time constraints, or the lack of knowledge, lack of desire, or all of the above. If that's what qualifies as assuming, then yeah I'm assuming.


>But the diet change is working. I feel tons better than I did.

That's great, and I don't mean that sarcastically. But next time, maybe you should consider the possibility that I wasn't talking about you specifically or your chip making practices.

[Doc]

>You assume to much.

  I was talking about Ashock's comment, not yours.

>I make pretty much everything I eat from base materials. Scratch.

  That's nice, of course maybe I wasn't clear that I wasn't talking about what you personally do.  For most people they don't make things out of scratch that often.  Either from time constraints, or the lack of knowledge, lack of desire, or all of the above.  If that's what qualifies as assuming, then yeah I'm assuming.
>But the diet change is working. I feel tons better than I did.
 
  That's great, and I don't mean that sarcastically.  But next time, maybe you should consider the possibility that I wasn't talking about you specifically or your chip making practices.
[right][snapback]82550[/snapback][/right]

My apologies then. :D

I agree with you though. People do not pay enough attention to what they eat.

[Ninjadruid]

My favourtie salsa isn't nearly the same as Doc's as its a lot more Indian than Mexcian. Also, I am not a fan of the 'burning' (my drainpipes aren't consrtucted out of steel).

My Grandma makes this stuff she calls chili sauce, which is like sweet sweet salsa, with no spice. Its got more ingredients than it in antipasto, so I won't get into that, but my point is, you don't can fruit in metal. Alteast not if you're my Grandma. Antipasto, salsa, peaches, raspberries, pie filling, it all gets canned in glass pressure sealed jars. Ala this.

Anyway, here are some easy easy salsas

For Chicken
pineapple
minced red bell pepper
fresh cilantro
red wine vinegar

Sear, crush then add cilantro, and vinegar

For Fish
Mango
Papya
Red Onion
Fresh Cilantro
Gooseberries

No cooking - let it set on the counter for a couple hours before serving

For Rice (this one is a bit harder)
finely diced onion
a clove or two crushed garlic
curry powder (green)

Fry these things up in nut oil, I like almond, cause its sweet, but peanut is cheap and will do the trick.

After it is done cooking, add in the below things

pineapple - puréed (about ¾ cup)
tomatoes
bananas

If your pinapple isn't juicy, add some pineapple juice.
Finally, mix in a tablespoon of brown sugar, just enough to make the curry get to the back of your mouth before you can taste anything but sweet.

For Beef
Nectarines
Lemon
Cumin
Tumeric
Poppyseeds
Cloves
Garlic
Red Onion

You must soak your poppyseeds overnight, in water, before making them into anything, or they are crunchy nuggets of hardness.

Get your hands on the lightest oil you can find for this, one. Canola oil is great, then sear and cook to soft. If you have a dutch oven, you can also just throw this in the oven, which gives it more poppyseed flavor.

My favorite salsa ever was this cream, coconut, mango, curry concoction; it came mixed with tandoori chicken and I haven't tried to recreate it, to make it special whenever I go out and have it.