Salsa Tamulada Recipe

Salsa Tamulada is a chunky and rustic Mexican salsa with roasted and chargrilled notes. It’s perfect for dipping our chips into this BBQ season.

This sensational salsa is the first in a series of recipes created for you to try at home by our very own NPD (that stands for New Product Development) and Culinary Manager, Carlos Macías. Scroll down to see a step-by-step video from Carlos himself.

The word tamulada comes from tamul, which is a wooden pestle and mortar, typical from the Yucatán peninsula, used to mash ingredients.

Ideally, the ingredients are cooked over a wood chargrill, a BBQ or a pizza oven. Alternatively, you can use a cast iron pan or thick bottom pan over high heat. The idea is to roast ingredients heavily relatively fast to lock in the flavour.

You can make it as spicy as you like, depending on what kind of chilli you want to use. If you want it very mild, you can simply use a romano pepper instead of chilli. 

Ingredients (to make approximately 800g Salsa)

– 1 kg Tomatoes (the best quality you can find)

– 1/2 Brown onion or 2 small brown onions, peeled

– 3 Garlic cloves, skin on

– 3 Scotch Bonnet or fresh habanero chilli (depending on how hot you want it)

– Salt to taste (about 1 tbsp)

Method

1. Prepare your BBQ or pre-heat your cast iron pan or oven grill.

2. Cut the onions in quarters.

3. Place tomatoes on the pan and roast on all sides. Try to roast the skin as much as possible before it starts to peel off and juice starts to come out. Set aside.

4. Do the same with the onions, chillies and garlic with skin on. Roast until there’s a good level of charring on all sides. The onions will take longer, they should be charred but algo soft and cooked.

5. Once the garlic has cooled a bit, peel it and discard the skin.

6. In a mortar, add the garlic, onion and chillies first. Mash them until they become a rustic paste. Then add in the tomatoes and mash until you reach a salsa consistency. If you don’t have a mortar, you can pop into a blender and pulse until it becomes a chunky salsa.

7. Season to your taste with salt. 

8. If the salsa is too thick for your liking, add a bit of water to get your preferred texture

Time to sit back and enjoy with a bag of chips!