Nectarine Salsa

Perfect Snack for the Super Bowl Party!

People mostly know all or none about Superbowl (for the sake of simplicity, I am going to conveniently ignore those on the fence) and I, belong in the latter. Probably, if you asked me about Cricket instead, may be I could bore you to death. On second thoughts, not even that ‘cos the cricket I was fanatic about belongs to a bygone era, an early 90’s and the 2000’s. Now, I am pretty much clueless about who plays for which team.

As it turns out, I wasn’t much of a sports girl at all.

Hey, wait a minute. I do think I know a little bit – Superbowl is on a Sunday and that sunday is just less than a week away, on Feb the 6th to be precise and this time around it happens to be Superbowl XLV. And, Isn’t it Superbowl Sunday when the best TV ads are broadcast and isn’t that the day of most food consumption in the US, only next to Thanksgiving?

There you go, I didn’t quite disappoint you after all. Thanks to my blogger friends on twitter for filling in with at least half the info, for an otherwise Superbowl ‘illiterate’ like me! The game still remains a mystery to me though..

In a way, this has got very little to do with Superbowl or probably a lot. You decide which one. Before that, let me quickly tell you how I came about all this.

We all know what to do “When life hands you lemons..” I had to stretch this a bit far..

I would have never thought of making Salsa out of Nectarines of all the fruits, if not for this fateful wintry day when I drooled over a few Nectarines that seemed rather out-of-place for the season in the grocery store (I should’ve realized). Temptation took over the best of me for, they happily came home. It wasn’t long before I understood why they were actually on sale. I somehow had to save my face from him as I had dared to buy them against his cautionary advice. It was like hot ghee – hard to swallow, forget the question of spitting out (It’s Ghee!).

For the next few days, I left them alone, not a look at them even when I opened the refrigerator, I hated to be reminded of the blunder I had committed. There’s nothing worse than ending up with sour nectarines, I had thought. I always find myself with a better sense of judgement after sleeping over such issues for good or for worse (conditions apply of course). And this time, was no different. As luck would have it later that week, I was reminiscing how my friend Lil makes lovely Pico de gallo and I had my eureka moment just as those thoughts crossed. Without wasting a single moment when I googled (google – always my partner in crime), I discovered I was not the first one to think of it, such a delectable way to use this stone fruit.

Armed with this kind of disaster recovery story to share, this post was born.

Moral of the story:

When life hands you sour Nectarines………….Make Nectarine Salsa and not just that, feed your friends & family on Superbowl Sunday!

So, here I am jumping on to the Superbowl bandwagon with the only one thing I know in the scheme of things – food!

What do you think of Nectarine salsa? Have you made it before? Does this remind you of your own funny eureka moment with any of your mistaken buys? Share a piece of your mind with me..

{Nectarine Salsa on whole grain baked Tostitos mini bowls}

Chunky Nectarine Salsa Recipe

Adapted from Epicurious.com

Printable Recipe

Things you’ll need:

• 2 medium nectarines, washed, pitted and finely chopped (skin on)
• 1 large Roma tomato, finely chopped
• 1/4 large white onion, minced
• small handful of cilantro, washed and finely chopped
• juice of 1/2 medium lemon, freshly squeezed
• 2 green chillies, seeded and sliced into thin rounds ~ optional
• ground black pepper to taste
• red chilli powder / cayenne pepper to taste
• 1 tsp cane sugar
• sea salt

How it’s done:

• In a medium salad bowl, combine the chopped ingredients.
• Sprinkle ground black pepper and red chilli powder to taste. Add in the lemon juice, cane sugar and salt and mix well with a salad spoon. Let sit for at least 30 mins before serving for the fruit and veggies to soak up the spices.
• Serve garnished with chopped cilantro as a salad or as chunky salsa in crunchy whole grain baked Tostitos scoops – crunch, juicy, crunch!

Storing Suggestion:

Store unused/leftover salsa immediately in the refrigerator and use within 2 days. As it is made of raw vegetable ingredients, it can be a breeding ground for harmful bacteria when left at room temperature.

Other ingredient variations:

The recipe works well with Peaches and semi raw Mangoes too. Thinking of raw/green mangoes makes me want to be in Bangalore now. Totapuri/Ginimooti Mavinkayi (Mango tipped like a parrot’s beak) would be perfect for this salsa recipe.

Jalapeños and Serrano peppers (seeded and finely chopped) can be substituted for green chillies. If you don’t like the heat, just leave the chilli peppers out of the recipe and it will taste fine too.

Caution: Serrano peppers can be extremely hot. Be especially careful when chopping Serrano peppers. I personally wouldn’t shy away from using gloves for chopping as at one time, I dared chopping them with bare hands and ended up with an undying burning sensation for a whole day! (in spite of all home remedies)

Tiny tidbit: Pico de gallo is also called “Salsa Fresca” in Mexican Cuisine as it is freshly made from raw ingredients (veggies). source: wiki

Verdict:

Nectarine salsa tasted much better after sitting for a bit rather than when made fresh, probably because given the time, the spices settled well giving it a tiny pickled effect.

Both of us simply loved the salsa on baked whole grain tostito scoops (or mini bowls) as well as multi grain crackers to the extent that we were almost in competition to grab the most of it. Before we realized, we had scraped the bowl clean. Who knew salsa could be this exotic? The next time I spot some nectarines, I might buy them to make just that!

Beautiful salsa recipes on blogs I love:

Nectarine Salsa @ Vegetarian Family Table

Mango Salsa @ White on Rice Couple

{Bowl of baked whole grain Tositos scoops}

Sending Nectarine Salsa as my entry to Cooking with Fruits event hosted by Smita of Taste Buds

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