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The Secret Ingredient is Salsa

May 23, 2011

Tomatoes, onions, chile and cilantro… all well and good for a salsa, but this versatile, flavorful ingredient can be so much more.

Part sauce, part relish, even part salad, salsa has moved out beyond the standard-issue chip accessory to become a signature-making menu component. Just take a look at the following examples by way of proof.

 

  • Three salsas offered at Dos Caminos, in New York City: Roasted Tomato-Arbol Salsa; Pasilla de Oaxaca Salsa; Tres Chiles Salsa
  • The Blue Room, Boston: Big, Huge, Giant Grilled Shrimp with Scotch Bonnet Salsa
  • McCormick & Schmick’s: Coconut Fried Shrimp with horseradish marmalade and tropical fruit salsa; Mako Shark, blackened, roast corn salsa and fried chili onion rings
  • Down Under, Waves, N.C. :  Down Under Tartlet (Flaky crust filled with sausage and egg, topped with cheese, baked and finished with crab salsa)
  • Pittypat’s Porch, Atlanta: Black-eyed Pea Cakes with Southern peach salsa
  • Métisse French Bistro, New York City: Traditional orange crème brûlée, with rose strawberry salsa, homemade biscuit
  • Tortilla Flats, Soquel, Calif.:  Pollo con Pina y Nopalitos (Grilled chicken strips with fresh pineapple and nopalito salsa, served on a bed of fresh greens)
  • Ubuntu, Napa, Calif.: Bitter Green Beignets with carrot top salsa verde, ‘pac man’ broccoli

 

Carrot top salsa? Yes, indeed. Remembering that salsa is just another word for sauce helps open up the field for all kinds of inspirations, ingredients, utilizations and techniques. It’s also not just for Mexican menus.

 

  • Use your favorite salsa to dress up straightforward proteins such as grilled fish, chicken or pork
  • Add it to vinaigrette dressings to bring added texture and color to salads, or to mayonnaise, sour cream, softened goat cheese, or hummus to create a sandwich condiment or dip
  • Turn a freebie into an item you can charge for by menuing several different salsas with chips and crudités
  • Experiment with different chiles beyond the familiar jalapeno or chipotles; there are a wide variety of fresh and dried chiles, as well as chile pastes and other products, from easy-to-work-with serranos to incendiary habaneros, and more-exotic peppers like Peru’s aji amarillo
  • Remember that salsa represents a great utilization for produce, such as overripe or bruised fruits, a “bumper crop” of zucchini or lots of prime-season tomatoes
  • Speaking of seasonal, salsa is a perfect means for reflecting what’s freshest from the farm at any given time of year
  • Salsa ingredients don’t need to be raw; even standard salsa components like tomatoes, onions and chiles can be smoked, roasted, grilled, charred, pickled and more to bring a different flavor profile and texture to the finished recipe
  • Seafood salsa are becoming more popular, and a great utilization for items like broken shrimp or a batch of crabmeat that needs to be used up quickly; when in doubt, start with a seafood salad recipe and adjust it to create a salsa
  • Take inspiration from ethnic cuisine; for instance, the ingredients in pesto can be more roughly chopped to create a salsa with the fresh tastes of basil and garlic
  • In a similar vein, use the concept of a salsa to make ingredients more accessible to customers; can the Sicilian eggplant relish known as caponata be recast as Sicilian olive and eggplant salsa?
  • Remember to look at contrasting and complementary textures and colors when creating a salsa; you can always add texture with raw vegetables or even nuts
  • Fruit salsas can be used with desserts, especially if the fruits are sweetened, caramelized through roasting, and/or paired with additions like cinnamon or shredded coconut

 

At Synergy Consultants, we can help you develop menu selections to create “WOW” flavors and visual appeal, balanced with targeted food cost, profit contribution and an eye for consistent execution.