Guacamole & Salsas Rojo y Verde

What do I add to guacamole? A tiny pinch of sea salt and a spritz of lime juice. I served it with salsa rojo I made tonight, and tostadas.

First step: washing roma tomatoes, washing, de-seeding and chopping the tree peppers. Before I washed my hands, I touched my forehead, and got a huge red spot on my melanin-challenged forehead in the bargain. 

With the peppers ready, now it's time to toast garlic and the tomatoes on a clean pan, medium high heat, nothing on the pan. You'll wanna keep turning everything. Once the skins of the garlic are charred, you can take them out. Keep charring and turning the tomato until it breaks down and starts to reduce. You're looking to intensify the flavor of the tomato. This method is traditional to Mexico, though instead of using fresh chiles, my friends and co-workers usually prefer to use dried chile arbols, which are spicy hot, so be careful to use ventilation. The arbols you'll wanna de-seed after charring the skins. Then peel the garlic, rough chop the tomato, throw the chiles into a blender with a pinch of salt. I like to reserve 2-3 tomatoes and a handful of chiles to rough chop some more, so you have a few chunks in your salsa. I also added a rehydrated chile Morita & Chipotle before blending. The smoky aroma and flavors of these chiles goes well with the tomato and garlic. These salsas make good hosts for a bit of cumin, black pepper, and ground coriander as well.

Anaheim, poblanos and tomatillos--these I roasted in that skillet pictured above after I took out the tomato & garlic. Some of that garlic went into this salsa verde. Otherwise, just a handful of other green chiles, mostly serranos. Jalapenos would have been good here. There's also some Cilantro Lime Sauce I made a few days ago which got added to the blend. I dry cooked the bigger chiles and the tomatillos the same was as I did the tomatoes, so I got some robust flavors. Had 3 roasted garlic, added 2 extra raw ones. Pretty happy with the result, which is fairly chunky and thick.