There is a better way to make pico de gallo. There are 7,502,231 recipes on the internet. I counted. All exactly the same. Chop some stuff. Mix it up. Eat. But there’s a better way.
No surprise there’s a million recipes on the internet. Pico de gallo is damn tasty stuff. Everybody loves it. It goes with all sorts of things. A burst of bright flavour anywhere it goes.
More often than not you get a big watery mess in the bottom of your bowl. And that mess is where the flavour is. The lime. The salt.
Unbalanced is another problem. Onions too sharp. Lime and salt too light (it’s all in the watery mess). That wonderful harmony of flavours just not right. Once it’s all mixed up there’s not much you can do about it…
Neither of these are really the end of the world but if you want to make your pico de gallo better then here’s a couple tricks.
It’s two really easy added steps. That’s all. Takes a few minutes of your time and fixes things up nicely. Overall you will wait about an hour for best results but it’s completely unattended time. Get a haircut. Go golfing. It’ll keep.
The first is to deflame your onions. I didn’t come up with the term. I learned that from Rick Bayless. It’s simple. A bit of genius really.
Just toss your chopped white onions into a strainer and run it under cold water for 10 seconds. It takes the bite out of the onions. Can you spare 10 seconds?
The second is to strain your tomatoes. There are a couple advantages to this. You don’t have a pico in a puddle. More importantly, the lime and salt balance stays the same. It doesn’t all wind up in the puddle.
If you deflamed your onions then your strainer is already dirty. Put it to good use. Let the pico sit for up to an hour before you do the final salt and lime tweaks.
Two easy steps. Same ingredients. A better way to make pico de gallo.
a better way to make pico de gallo
Ingredients
- 2 ripe tomatoes - diced
- 1 jalapeño - seeded and minced
- 1/3 cup white onion - chopped
- handful of minced cilantro
- salt to taste
- fresh lime juice to taste
Instructions
- Dice the tomatoes.
- Seed and devein the jalapeño, then mince it finely.
- Chop the white onion. Place it in a strainer and run under cold water for about 10 seconds.
- Combine the tomato, jalapeño, onion and cilantro in a bowl. Add salt and lime to taste.
- Place the pico in the strainer, put it over the bowl you used to mix the ingredients and let drain for up to one hour. Discard the liquid that accumulates.
- Taste and adjust the salt and lime to taste.
Rao’s meatballs. If you’ve ever had them you know. Possible the best meatballs ever. These are those meatballs and this is that marinara sauce.
The one from the fabled little restaurant in Harlem. The restaurant Madonna can’t get a table at.
I’ve been to Rao’s (the copycat one in Las Vegas) and I’ve had the meatballs. They are epic meatballs. Seriously. Tender, moist, flavourful.
Rao’s meatballs are possible the best meatballs ever
Rao’s meatballs are the best meatballs I have ever tasted. They are simple but somehow magical at the same time. It’s totally worth the effort to make these at home.
The version floating around the internet is close I think except for two little details. The internet version has you make the meatballs 1 1/2 inches in diameter. And you only simmer the meatballs in the marinara for 15 minutes. In the restaurant, Rao’s meatballs are bigger. Way bigger.
And they taste like they’ve had a good long simmer in the marinara. You barely know where the meatball starts and marinara ends.
