I probably serve salsa twice a week, particularly in warmer weather. I make mango salsa for chicken and roasted salmon, avocado salsa for all kinds of grilled fish, strawberry salsa for beets and mozzarella, and bell pepper-celery salsa for just about everything. Those are all what I think of as pick-up dishes: I pick up whatever’s in the refrigerator or ripening on the counter; cut it into small dice; add onion, tomatoes, seasonings, herbs if I’ve got them, a little oil and a lot of citrus juice or vinegar. I never measure. I always taste as I go. And I never make the same thing exactly the same way twice.
I also have never made salsa’s fresh and less-juicy cousin, pico de gallo, which is Spanish for “rooster’s beak.” Or if I did, I didn’t know I was doing it. In fact, I hadn’t thought about the fresh relish since forever, and then I had it three days in a row and wanted to have it every day thereafter.
My pico de gallo moment came at Lake Austin Spa Resort, where I’d gone to teach French cooking. (Yes, some jobs are a lot better than others.) Although all the spa’s food from chef Stephane Beauchamp was thoughtful, beautiful and luscious, I loved the mix-and-match lunch. It was my favorite choice on the midday menu, which was divided into sections — protein, grains, vegetables and sauces — and on Day 1, I had: shrimp, freekeh, kale, bok choy (because it came from the spa’s garden) and pico de gallo. And although there were other things that called to me, I kept going back to that quintet. I loved the freekeh, kale and bok choy, but the shrimp and pico de gallo were what I craved when I got home.
The accompanying recipe is not the one from Lake Austin Spa Resort, but it has what I loved about that medley: vegetables both crunchy and soft, a light bite from the red onion, some heft from the garlic, heat from peppers, additional heat from hot sauce if you want it, and more lime juice than you might normally think to use. That it has pineapple in it is a just-because, as in, I put it in just because I love fruit and spice, because pineapple and jalapeño are a perfect match and because pineapple has the same kind of sweet-and-acidic flavors the spa chef used. Plus, the fruit looks pretty in the mix and is a sweetheart match with shrimp.
At home, I put my latest salsa over freekeh, of course, and also over quinoa and brown rice. All good. But my favorite combo was grilled corn tortilla, shredded cabbage or lettuce, avocado mash, shrimp sauteed with Old Bay Seasoning and lime, with the pineapple salsa.
Takeaway tips
■ Make sure the tomatoes are sweet and ripe. They’re the spine of the salsa. Grape or cherry tomatoes are often your best bet if you can’t find sweet roma or regular tomatoes. Seed them if you’d like; it’s a nice but not necessary touch.
■ Rinse the red onion in cold water to wash away any bitterness — a cool trick no matter what you’re making (and it works for shallots, too).
■ If you’re making the salsa ahead of time, add the lime juice right before serving. Lime “cooks” the tomatoes, so your salsa will be brighter-colored
and brighter-flavored when you wait.
■ Salsa gets juicy; the riper the tomatoes, the juicier the salsa. If there’s more liquid than you’d like, just serve the salsa with a slotted spoon.
■ Toast corn tortillas before serving — you can warm them on a grill, in a grill pan or in a dry skillet — and you’ll bring out their corn-y flavor.
■ If you want to make the dish more spa-like, swap lettuce for the tortillas and make wraps.
Whatever you do, do it casually. You could make up the tortillas or wraps in the kitchen, but I wouldn’t. Put out all the colorful ingredients on the table and get messy. It’s part of what makes this dish so appealing.
Photograph by Goran Kosanovic. This story and recipe originally appeared in my Everyday Dorie column for The Washington Post.