Salsas

Salsa is one of the most popular and widely used cold sauces in North America. Salsa accompanies Mexican and Mexican-American dishes and is an ingredient in many standard sandwiches, sauces, dips, and appetizers. Modern Caribbean cuisine features salsas made from mangos, pineapples, guavas, and many other tropical fruits. Southwestern cuisine includes salsa combinations such as black beans and corn, and roasted peppers and nopal cactus.

Bottled salsas, called cooked salsas, are typically made from tomatoes, onions, garlic, and various types of chiles, as well as natural and artificial thickeners, stabilizers, and preservatives. Salsa fresca, or fresh salsa, is made from tomatoes or other soft, juicy vegetables or fruits that have not been cooked, other than sometimes a brief blanching in order to remove the skins. Ingredients fabricated into small dice and simply tossed together are correctly called a fresh, or uncooked, relish. When traditional salsa ingredients are prepared this way, the sauce is called pico de gallo [PEE-koh day GAH-yoh]. A traditional salsa made from firm, ripe avocadoes is guacamole [gwa-kah-MOH-lay] (covered in Chapter 4).