Carey's Original Pico de Gallo
This pico is my own recipe, made for over 25 years. It's wonderfully fresh and flavorful, serving well with meat, chicken, fish, or as a side dish or dip. Feel free to alter it to create your own variation.
This pico is my own recipe, made for over 25 years. It's wonderfully fresh and flavorful, serving well with meat, chicken, fish, or as a side dish or dip. Feel free to alter it to create your own variation.
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- juice of 1 lime
- 1 pinch salt to taste
- 2 each fresh jalapeno or serrano chiles, core & minced fine
- only keep part of the seeds depends on your prefer
- 2 clove garlic chopped, peeled
- 5 large ripe, red tomatoes peeled, not seeded; (abt 2 1/2 lbs)
- 6 scallions with part of green, cut fine
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves diced
- 1 teaspoon mexican oregano crumbled fine
- 1 medium white onion chopped fine
- Carbohydrate 10.2821666666667 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 0.487728333333333 g
- Fiber 2.8294167290926 g
- Protein 2.06508833333333 g
- Saturated Fat 0.0692358333333333 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (204g)
- Sodium 64.0743333333333 mg
- Sugar 7.45274993757407 g
- Trans Fat 0.131092666666667 g
- Calories 47 calories
Step-by-step
- With a large sharp knife, chop the chilies very fine.
- Mince the garlic.
- Coarsely chop the tomatoes and white onion.
- Finely chop the scallions and cilantro.
- Place the garlic, tomatoes, scallions, and cilantro in a large bowl.
- If the tomatoes are very dry and juiceless, gradually add up to 1/2 cup cold water to achieve a light salsa consistency.
- Stir to mix the ingredients.
- Add the chiles a little at a time, tasting, until it is as hot as you like.
- Add the oregano, then squeeze the lime juice into the salsa; gradually add salt to taste.
- Use at once.
Avoiding Texture Pitfalls
Many home cooks mistakenly process raw salsa ingredients in a mechanical food processor, which instantly pulverizes the tomatoes into a watery puree rather than maintaining individual vegetable pieces. Achieving the proper chunky consistency requires a sharp chef knife and a deliberate hand motion. Dicing the white onion and ripe tomatoes uniformly ensures every spoonful contains a balanced distribution of acidity, heat, and crunch.
Adjusting for Dietary Needs
Dietary adjustments remain straightforward when modifying fresh condiments for specific nutritional requirements. Substituting apple cider vinegar at a one-to-one ratio for red wine vinegar retains the necessary acetic bite if the pantry lacks fermented grape options. Fresh lime juice acts as both a flavor enhancer and a natural preservative, lowering the overall pH without requiring refined sodium.
Evaluating Proper Doneness
Visual and textural cues dictate when the mixture achieves readiness without relying on thermal measurement tools. The finished preparation looks properly blended when the salt has drawn out a light liquid suspension from the tomatoes and the minced chilies are evenly distributed throughout the mass. Letting the vegetables rest for ten minutes allows the Mexican oregano and crushed garlic to thoroughly permeate the surrounding juices.
