Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa

We developed this salsa after experimenting with many different recipes. Our initial goal was to recreate the Chevy's Salsa. I like this recipe since there is not too much prep time, but there is wait time between some of the steps. Fire-roasting the tomatoes, peppers and garlic adds a little natural smoky flavor to the salsa. Some of the earlier recipes I tried had the addition of liquid smoke. The processed chemical taste of liquid smoke made me sick to my stomach.

Ingredients:

• 6-8 Tomatoes: I use whichever tomatoes look the ripest and cheapest at the super market. Most of the time, these will be Roma tomatoes.
• 1-2 Jalapeno Peppers
• 1 Shallot
• Cilantro a handful of leaf portion.
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Pepper

Preparation:

1. Wash the tomatoes and peppers. If bought at a regular supermarket, these will usually have a light wax coating. I prefer to wash this off with a little dish soap.
2. Place tomatoes, peppers and garlic on a grill. My grill works best when set on high. Rubber tongs are very useful for helping turn the vegetables over. As one side gets slightly charred, flip them over gingerly. Once charred, the skins are very fragile. Pay attention to hot spots on your grill and move them around as needed. If you don't have a grill, this can also be accomplished in a toaster oven set to broil. It will take longer, but it can be done.
3. Place slightly charred tomatoes, peppers and garlic in a sealed container and refrigerate until cool (about 2 -4 hours)
4. Chop the scallion, cilantro, garlic and pepper. You don't need to do a very good job chopping. But chopping down the size of these ingredients reduces the amount of blending needed later. We prefer a slightly chunkier salsa, so we don't want to blend too much and make salsa soup. Remove the skins from the garlic and stems from the jalapeño peppers. With jalapeño peppers, I find that some are very spicy, while others can be very mild. I recommend separating the seeds, and slowly adding them back in to adjust for your desired level of spiciness.
5. Place all vegetables into a blender. Add salt and pepper. Sometimes we use truffle salt to give the salsa a little extra flavor. Pulse blender on chop until ingredients are mixed. Depending on how you like your salsa, chunky or smooth, you can blend more or less. Add additional salt and pepper to your taste. Best served slightly chilled. Enjoy!