Pico de Gallo

We love pico de gallo.  It’s so festive, like little bits of colorful confetti, and so yummy.  Pico de gallo is a great summer food when the tomatoes are in season, and lucky for us, here in October, tomatoes are still ripe and delicious in Xiamen, where today I was sweating in my long pants and black t-shirt in the blazing sun.  Especially on the bus where about 100 people were crammed into a bus that should fit about 40, and the little Chinese man in front of us in a straw cowboy hat kept giving us inquisitive glances when he noticed us speaking in English.

I love how when Chris and I go out, I’m the one who gets the stares. Not the 6’3” tall white guy, but the normal sized Chinese girl sitting next to him.  In a land of 1.3 billion Chinese people, how am I the anomaly???

It’s simple of course.  I’m with the white guy, and I’m speaking English.  Most people in our neighborhood just don’t have a frame of reference for someone strange like me.

Anyway, back to the fresh tomato salsa.  It’s delicious.  And we’re hanging on to summer for as long as we can.  And you should make it asap – it’s the easiest thing in the world, and soon tomatoes will be mealy, pale shadows of their former selves, so go grab the last ripe ones while you can.

NOTE: If you can find a good mango (and with our crazy food distribution networks around the globe now, you can find mangoes almost all through the year), try chopping one up and throwing it into this salsa. Trust me. Your taste buds will swoon.

Pico de Gallo (Fresh Tomato Salsa)

This is seriously so easy, and feel free to adjust the proportions of different ingredients to taste.  Chris doesn’t love cilantro (I know, what a weirdo), so I added a little less.

1 red onion
4 ripe tomatoes
½ cup chopped cilantro, lightly packed
2 jalapeño peppers
juice of 1 lime
salt

Chop onion and tomatoes and jalapeños into small dice (leave the seeds if you like it spicy – that’s where the heat is).  Mix everything together, including cilantro and lime juice.  Salt to taste.

Important!  Do not rub your eyes while you are chopping jalapeños! Not unless you want to find out the hard way (like Chris did), how nasty that can be.

By the way, if you live in China like me, those ubiquitous skinny green chilies will work just as well if you can’t find jalapeño peppers, though we actually did find them at a supermarket called RT-Mart.

And don’t forget to toss in a diced mango if you’ve got one!