Salsa Verde with Pápalo

Once you’ve had homemade salsa verde, store bought just won’t do. With tomatillos becoming more readily available in grocery stores, making your own green salsa is well worth the 15 minutes it takes to do so.

I’m on a mission to find Pápalo, a Mexican herb to add to my salsa verde and that means a trip to Sunset Park. Sunset Park Brooklyn has a Mexican enclave with amazing green markets and if you are looking for authentic Mexican food, this is the place to go.

Tomatillos are a tangy, lemony and bright fruit that are often mistaken for green tomatoes. They aren’t tomatoes but they are nightshades so you could say, they are cousins. Tomatillos do not have the sweetness of tomatoes and their interior is more dense and less watery. And this denseness makes them delicious when roasted.

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Ingredients: 10 to 12 tomatillos, 2 large or 5 small jalapeño peppers, 2 garlic cloves, 1/2 of a sweet onion either red or Vidalia, start with 4 Pápalo leaves, salt to taste

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Salsa Verde ~ Roast

1. Shuck and then rinse tomatillos

2. Rinse and trim stems of the jalapeño peppers. Leave seeds in for heat or take them out for mild heat

3. Peel and cut off hard top of garlic cloves

4. Cut tomatillos and peppers in half and place them inside down on a baking sheet

5. Roast under the broiler for 5 to 6 minutes until tops are slightly browned and blistered

Salsa Verde ~ Blend

1. Place the roasted tomatillos, peppers and garlic in a bowl and let them cool tossing every now and again to release the heat

2. When the mixture is no longer hot, blend with a food processor to slightly chunky

Salsa Verde ~ Mix

1. Chop onion and tear Pápalo leaves

2. Fold onion and Pápalo into cooled (you want the onion and Pápalo to have crunch) to blended tomatillos

3. Salt to taste

And the quest to find Pápalo? Five different green markets and no luck. It was in a nondescript corner grocery store that my luck changed. The deli at this bodega made Cemitas.

Cemitas are sandwiches from the state of Puebla know for their brioche-like bun with sesame seeds. They are filled with carnitas which is braised pork, white cheese, avocado and dressed with either pickled jalapeños or smoky chipotle chilies. They are always topped with Pápalo.

And there it was, a glass of Pápalo on the little table in the corner of the bodega. Turns out, the owner grows it in his backyard. He sold me a bunch for a dollar.