If you understand what makes an incredible tomato salad, like my Mothership tomato salad, you’ll also understand how to make a great tomato salsa. The only slight difference is that with a tomato salad you’re looking for balance but salsa can have a bit more attitude! In essence, you need great tomatoes, salt to make them sing, a twang of vinegar, a good hit of lemon or lime, a herb or mixture of herbs for fragrance, and chilli for background or in-your-face heat. Any of these factors can be tweaked or varied when you make this salsa. It will turn a simple roasted piece of chicken or a grilled pork chop or a piece of barbecued swordfish or tuna into an absolute flavour-fest. Bloody exciting stuff and damn quick to make.
PS When buying your fish, look out for whatever’s fresh. Tuna and swordfish can be overfished in many parts of the world and we need to let their stocks grow – just be aware of this and go for fish that is plentiful and fished for in a responsible and sustainable way.
Serves 6
Ingredients
- 6 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
- 1–2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped to taste
- a bunch of fresh coriander, leaves picked
- a bunch of fresh mint, leaves picked
- 1kg beautifully ripe but firmish tomatoes
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- juice of ½ a lemon
- juice of 1 lime
- 6 fresh fish fillets (particularly Mediterranean fish like sustainably sourced tuna, swordfish, marlin and any from the snapper family)
- olive oil
Method
- First of all, get your barbecue or griddle pan preheated and ready to go. Making the salsa is pretty easy – it just involves a lot of chopping! Get yourself a big board and finely slice the spring onions and half of the chillies on it. Then, on top of the spring onions, finely chop the coriander leaves with the upper parts of the stalks, and the mint leaves. On top of them, slice up your tomatoes and chop to the kind of consistency that you like – I like my salsas quite fine. By chopping everything on the same board it allows for better integration of the flavours.
- Carefully scrape everything off the board into a nice serving bowl with all the juices. Season and balance the flavours confidently with sea salt, the lemon juice and the lime juice, bearing in mind that they vary in juiciness, size and sourness all over the world, so taste as you go and use common sense. To my mind, a salsa has to be pretty punchy and fragrant, so add, stir and taste, add, stir and taste until you’ve got something good going on! If you want to add extra chilli to give it a bit more of a kick, chop some more on the board and add it to the bowl now.
- Put the salsa to one side while you get your fish ready. Rub it on both sides with olive oil and season with salt and pepper, then grill or griddle to your liking on both sides. Serve the fish on a plate with a big dollop of the salsa on top, or to the side, and enjoy.