Tuesday, August 23, 2011

A Cooking Contest: the quest for the perfect peach salsa

My biggest splurge grocery shopping is chips and salsa.  I'm working on getting to the point of being able to make my own tortilla chips, starting with corn seed, growing the plants, harvesting the corn, and making cornmeal, but I've come no where near being able to replicate my favorite salsa.  My mom has been trying without success and I haven't even found anything in books or online that looks remotely similar.
That's where you come in.  We're going to have a little contest for who can come up with the recipe that tastes the most like my favorite salsa, Meijer Gold medium peach chipotle salsa.  The ingredients list reads: peaches, tomato puree, filtered water, onions, tomatoes, assorted chiles & peppers, evaporated cane juice, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice from concentrate, salt and spices.

The contest will run until October 3 (the average first frost date for my area, after which I'm sure it will be a lot harder to obtain fresh local peaches and tomatoes).  The winner will be the person that comes up with a recipe (original OR found somewhere) that most closely resembles the flavor of the store-bought salsa.  If none of the salsas entered taste like this product, the best tasting, as determined by me and my family, will be the winner.  If more than one person submits the same fount recipe, the first one to enter it will be considered the winner.  The prize is an assortment of seeds from the Trailer Park Homestead and a cookbook from my personal collection to be determined later (seeds can only be shipped within the US, the book prize is available internationally).  Post your recipes in the comments so I can find them easily and have record in one place of when each recipe was entered.

5 comments:

  1. I did a search on allrecipes, and found this one:

    http://allrecipes.com/recipe/peach-salsa/detail.aspx

    Nice thing about it? The recipe is in bulk, and specifies storing in sterile containers in the fridge. I think with very little tweaking - if any - it could be canned.

    Thanks for the contest...you've just led me to consider trying a recipe I've never done before. This looks interesting!

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  2. I also found this recipe:

    Peach Tomato Salsa

    3 firm peaches (about 1 lb.)
    1 tablespoons. lemon juice
    2 ripe tomatoes (about 1/2 lb.)
    6 large green onions
    1 tablespoons canned jalapeno peppers, chopped
    1 tablespoon cilantro, coarsely chopped
    12 tablespoons good quality olive oil
    6 tablespoons sherry vinegar
    2 tablespoons honey

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  3. Unfortunately, I can tell you right now that neither of those recipes comes remotely close to what I'm looking for. The first one is far too sweet and looks nothing like the goal salsa and the second one's peaches and tomatoes are out of balance. Look how read the salsa is in the jar pictured. No way is that going to happen with just 2 tomatoes and no other tomato products.

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  4. Hmm, good point. I'll keep looking, and maybe ask my hubby...for a guy who was born with no sense of smell (which means he can't taste much), he's a remarkable cook with a real understanding of flavors.

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  5. I don't think I stand a chance of figuring this recipe out. Meijer products aren't sold in this region so I don't have a sample to recreate and I stink at creative cooking, but I love a challenge and it would be awesome to help out. One idea I have about the coloring is that some of the red probably comes from the chipotle. I worked at a major chain restaurant for a number of years and they used chipotle tabasco for everything they sold with chipotle in the description. The chipotle tabasco did impart a decent flavor and red/brown color to what ever it was added to. Hope this can help with recipe creating/tweaking.

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