PICO DE GALLO

THE MEXICAN TOMATO SALAD

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Pico de gallo in my perspective is simply a Mexican take on a tomato salad. The distinctive qualities of the pico de gallo are its freshness, the zesty and acidic combination of tomato and lime juice, and the usual seasoning with fresh cilantro. The entire dish gets rounded out with onion and garlic flavor salt, and pepper.

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INGREDIENTS:

		RATIO:
4	Ripe Roma Tomatoes (Any Tomato will do but I love plum / Roma tomatoes)	| 4
1/2	Large White Onion (2 Shallots will do as well)	| 2
1/4 cup	Fresh Cilantro	| 1
1	Lime or Lemon
1/4 tsp	Sea Salt
1/8 tsp	Black Pepper

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INSTRUCTIONS:

• De-seed and dice the tomatoes to 1/4" pieces
• Mince onions or shallots into 1/8" inch pieces
• Mince cilantro leaves and stems... I normally cut off about half the stem, but then mince the rest.
• Put the vegetables in a bowl and gently incorporate them with a spoon.
• Sprinkle some salt and black pepper to taste. Sometimes I like to add a dash of olive oil or vegetable oil
• Now prep the limes or lemons for dressing the entire dish.
• Cut the limes and juice them onto the bowl, trying to avoid large pieces of pulp falling into the mixture, since these will make the pico de gallo bitter overtime. If you have the time,  juice the limes through a strainer onto a bowl and then add the juices to the mixture, this ensures that none of that pulp makes it into the salad.
• Stir to distribute the lemon juice and serve.

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ROLLING THE LIMES:

If you’re using fresh limes, before cutting them, use the palm of your hand to very gently crush/roll the lime against the work surface. While pressing down on the lime, rolling it gently will soften and release a lot of of the structure inside the line that’s going to keep the juices from flowing. Then juice with a fork or a juicer.

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