Tags
Coriander, Growing vegetables, Herbs, Recipe, Tomato, vegetarian
The bucket of green tomatoes is never-ending. I’m either going to have to give up gardening, or work harder at disguising ingredients in my cooking. First there was courgette in everything, closely followed by apple making an appearance in every other meal, now we’re in the depths of a green tomato glut.
After the green tomato cake, there was green tomato and parmesan focaccia, fried green tomatoes and the latest offering – green tomato salsa. There could well be a full-on revolt over the dinner table sometime very soon. But one of the attractions of homegrown fruit and veg is eating seasonally (yes, even if that means every meal while the season lasts), and growing ingredients that are rarely seen in the shops. So we will be enjoying green tomatoes until the bottom of the bucket appears…
Making salsa gave me a chance to work a few homegrown ingredients into one recipe. There were chillies from the greenhouse and a handful of fresh coriander leaves, also growing in pots under cover. I’d expected the weather to turn colder by now, so a few weeks ago I sowed a couple of pots of coriander to keep in the greenhouse and give us fresh leaves for as long as possible into autumn. The odd still warm day, scattered among the wet, grey, cooler days, mean there are lots of fresh coriander leaves.
Much as I love the flavour of coriander, I would usually be complaining about it growing like a weed in the garden. But this year there have been fewer self-seeded plants – last year’s rubbish weather meant that most of the plants didn’t get a chance to set and scatter seed. Next year looks like another season when I’ll need to buy in and sow seed. There was plenty of hot weather to encourage the plants to bolt, but the hens have developed a taste for coriander seed and eaten much of what was produced.
Anyhow, back to the green tomato salsa. It all started with a recipe from a blog called Modern Comfort Food, a very promising sounding mix of flavours. Working with the ingredients I had to hand, I used lime in place of lemon, and whatever chillies were ripe in the greenhouse, but largely stuck to the original. And it is really so good – the closest I’ve tasted to real tomatillo salsa verde, but without the tomatillos. Versatile too. We’ve eaten it with cheese and salads, a veggie shepherd’s pie, and swirled into a bowl of butternut squash soup. I’ve even tried green tomato salsa on toast for lunch… twice.
With a handful of coriander giving extra flavour to the salsa, this will be my offering for October’s Cooking with Herbs. It will join some fantastic, seasonal, herby recipes over on Karen’s blog at Lavender and Lovage – inspiration for using the best autumn has to offer.
Green tomato salsa
500g green tomatoes, washed and roughly chopped
1 small onion, peeled and roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
2 chillies – green or red, mild or hot… whatever suits your taste
½ tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp water
Juice of ½ lime
1 tsp honey
A good big handful of fresh coriander leaves, roughly chopped
Put the tomatoes, onions, garlic, chillies, salt, cumin, oil and water into a pan and bring to the boil. Stir, put a lid on the pan and simmer the mixture for about 10 minutes, giving it another stir from time to time. Add the lime juice, honey and coriander. Stir to mix, then cook for a further 5 minutes.
Blitz the salsa with a hand blender until you have a sauce-like texture. Taste and season with more salt if necessary.
Store in the fridge.
Christina said:
Thanks for this recipe, I actually have tomatillos waiting for a recipe to use them in!
thegardendeli said:
A salsa made with tomatillos would be great – I’ve never managed to grow enough in one summer to make salsa, the green tomatoes are the closest in flavour I’ve tasted so far.
CJ said:
What a great recipe. I never know what to do with green tomatoes, but I love salsa so this is perfect. I know exactly what you mean about courgettes in everthing, and then apples in everything. It’s the same here. But you’re right, that’s part of growing your own and eating with the seasons.
thegardendeli said:
At least there’s always the freezer to help spread the glut season a little longer!
Cathy said:
I love eating seasonally too – I’ve just been given more apples that can’t be stored, so it’s strudel time again!
thegardendeli said:
I remember making your strudel last year when you posted a recipe – it was very good!
Cathy said:
It was our third this autumn… practice makes perfect! 😉
(It disappeared within 24 hours again!) Glad you liked it!
fergie51 said:
What a cracker of a photo that parsley is! I am enjoying your posts so much, very inspirational and cheery. Can’t wait till I have a glut of produce to think about using. I currently have an over-abundance of tomato seedlings which unfortunately due to kiddies helping hands have had a loss of name tag. I’m giving them away as ‘lucky dip’ tomatoes. I’ve donated about 50 to a local cafe doing a breast cancer fundraising breaky to sell. Unfortunately some heritage ones I was looking forward to (Black Krim) are somewhere in the mix. Oh well, all part of the joy of sharing and going with the flow.
thegardendeli said:
You’ll be complaining about gluts of tomatoes, courgettes and beans while we’re in the depth of winter here – I’m looking forward to reading about them! We have the same problem with unlabelled tomato seedlings, but it’s usually my fault that they get mixed up…
apuginthekitchen said:
Oh love the idea of green tomato salsa. Your photo’s are stunning too!
thegardendeli said:
Thank you! It’s amazing how many recipes there are using green tomatoes once you start looking!
Anne ~ Uni Homemaker said:
Great use of green tomatoes Sarah! These are so hard to find here. I can only find green heirloom tomatoes. Love the salsa!
thegardendeli said:
I don’t think I’ve ever seen green tomatoes for sale here – a gap in the market maybe!
Lisa the Gourmet Wog said:
love the flavours of your salsa!! I’d happily enjoy it on toast too! x
thegardendeli said:
It’s very good on toast! I think the next step is to try it with a fried egg on toast…
Jacqueline @How to be a Gourmand said:
Your hens have got great taste – I love coriander too 🙂 Nice to see green tomatoes in a recipe – I don’t think I have ever tried them. Not knowingly at least! The salsa looks fresh and zingy, a great way to use up your glut of green tomatoes!
thegardendeli said:
The hens have gourmet tastes… coriander, swiss chard, kale, lettuce – anything we’d like to eat is good food as far as they’re concerned!
andreamynard said:
Looks fab and I do like the idea of making your salsa to go with squash soup, using two gluts in one meal!
thegardendeli said:
Thanks Andrea! If I could find a way to work apples into the soup and salsa combo, that would be another glut included in the one bowl.
Liz said:
My current ‘revolt’ at the dinner table crops are broad beans and parsnips – lots in the garden and little love for them from the family….looking forward to tormenting them with green tomatoes in 6 months or so….
thegardendeli said:
Why do they never like to eat the easy to grow veg? Peas and parsley are about the only things I can rely on getting the rest of the family to eat, even during the ‘glut’ seasons. Good luck with the green tomatoes!
Karen said:
I LOVE fried green tomatoes and I love your green tomato salsa too….especially with a dash of lime and some lovely cumin to blend with the coriander leaves – what a perfect balance of GREEN flavours Sarah! Karen
thegardendeli said:
Thanks Karen – as flavours go, lime and cumin are pretty good with so many things!
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Senka said:
Hi,
We’ve recently launched the website Alldishes.co.uk. It’s a search engine that aims to gather all the best recipes from UK and Irish websites and blogs. We’ve noticed that you have a lot of great looking recipes on your blog that we would love to feature on our site. To read more about how it all works and to sign up with your blog, please visit http://alldishes.co.uk or send us an email on info@alldishes.co.uk. We look forward to hearing from you!
Kind regards,
Senka
thegardendeli said:
Thanks for getting in touch – I’ll have a look at your website!
anna @ annamayeveryday said:
Love the look of your salsa. I wish I’d seen this sooner, I used up all my (copious) green tomatoes in chutney.
thegardendeli said:
There were a lot of green tomatoes this year, weren’t there! Chutney is a good way to use them up too – it keeps better, so you can enjoy the flavour for longer.
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