Pico de Gallo

Name: Pico de Gallo Recipe: Spicy Mexican Tomato Salad
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 15 min
Cuisine: Mexican cuisine
Ingredients: Ripe tomatoes 0.5 kg; Hot chili pepper to taste; Onion 1; Garlic 2-3 cloves; Cilantro to taste; Salt, black pepper, olive oil, lime juice to taste

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15 mins

I set out to make pico de gallo, a spicy Mexican salad. Mexican cuisine is one of the most varied in the world. It brings together the traditions of ancient peoples like the Aztecs and those of the Spanish, who arrived on the American continent more than 500 years ago.

A quirky blend of European and Eastern culinary traditions with the cooking art of the Aztecs and the Maya.
One of the most common dishes of Mexican cuisine is the taco, a sandwich made with a corn or wheat tortilla. It is often filled with salsa, guacamole, hot sauces or salads, or chili. It is especially tasty when the filling is a salad.

I’ve had tacos with pico de gallo (Spanish for “chicken’s beak” or “rooster’s beak”).

Pico de gallo differs from the familiar salsas only in how finely the ingredients are chopped. But it always contains small red tomatoes, onion and chili peppers. In some parts of Mexico, pico de gallo means a spicy salad with sweet lime juice and salty chili powder. But that’s an exotic version that not everyone understands even in Mexico. Meanwhile, making pico de gallo is no trouble at all.

Unfortunately, we only have two kinds of hot chili here: some red one and some green one. So you have to improvise and adapt recipes.

But, as they say, every joke has a grain of joke in it. Habanero peppers are 60 times hotter than ordinary chili. Just 1 gram of habanero is enough to make 30 liters of sauce fiery. Habaneros were supposedly offered to people condemned to death as an alternative to the sacrificial knife. They say there were no takers.

Without overthinking it, let’s use what we have and make a spicy salad.

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Ingredients

2 servings

Ripe tomatoes 0.5 kg
Hot chili pepper to taste
Onion 1
Garlic 2-3 cloves
Cilantro to taste
Salt, black pepper, olive oil, lime juice to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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How to make the spicy salad

By and large, pico de gallo is made without strict proportions or an exact set of ingredients. Ideally, this spicy salad is made from small red tomatoes and green chili peppers.
Prepare the tomatoes: wash and dry them, cut them in half and remove the seeds. You can peel them if you like. Then finely dice the tomatoes and put them in a deep bowl.
Prepare the vegetables for the sauce: cut the chili pepper (green or red) in half and remove the seeds and stem. Peel the garlic and onion.
Chop the sauce: put the chili, garlic, onion and cilantro in a food chopper, add olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Chop everything, but not too much, so it doesn’t turn into a puree. You can also just chop it all very finely with a knife.
Add the sauce to the chopped tomatoes, add lime juice to taste and stir. The salad is ready.

Serving

Pico de gallo can be eaten as a salad or with other dishes. It’s very tasty with grilled meat. Or you can make tortillas, which is quick and easy, and put the salad in them. Or wrap the spicy salad in lavash and enjoy.

Calories and macros

70 kcal

Serving ≈ 310 g

Protein3 g19% of kcal
Fat1 g8% of kcal
Carbs12 g73% of kcal

100 g24 kcalProtein 1 gFat 0.2 gCarbs 4 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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