Roasted Tomato Salsa with Chicken and Rice
After taking a short break this week from cooking, I decided to plunge head on last night and marinated, roasted, grilled, and boiled to end up with some amazing chicken tacos on our plates. So many flavors danced in my mouth! Smoky, tangy, spicy, a hint of sweet. It took a bit of choreography to get this all ready at approximately the same time, but any of the components could always be made ahead of time separately and reheated (if needed) for serving.
Tomatoes Chiles and Onions Ready to Roast
We had our first sunny, pleasant day in about two weeks and knew I wanted to grill some chicken and settled on Grilled Cilantro Lime Chicken. I had also (don’t laugh) taken my Ninja food processor to our RV camp last weekend and made some delicious roasted tomato salsa. I tell you that was a challenge to roast in our dinky RV toaster oven! Last night I decided to kick it up a notch and add some dried Ancho chiles. Wow! It turned an awesome salsa into an amazing awesome salsa. So I figured I would make the salsa and we could assemble some chicken tacos since I also had a ripe avocado. Last, my husband asked if I could also make some Cilantro Lime Rice, and I obliged.
Roasted Tomatoes, Chiles and Onions
If there’s only one thing you could make today, try your hand at this roasted salsa. You don’t need to have tacos to enjoy it, just grab a bag of tortilla chips and dig in!
Roasted Tomato Salsa with Ancho Chiles
2 dried Ancho chiles
4 Roma tomatoes
1/2 large jalapeño pepper
1/2 serrano pepper
1-inch thick slice of a large, sweet onion, quartered
2 garlic cloves, peeled
Olive oil
Squeeze of 1 or 2 lime wedges
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup cilantro
Place Ancho chiles in a glass bowl, and pour boiling water over them. Let sit for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes, jalapeño and serrano peppers in half (deseed the peppers) and place them face down on a foil-lined baking sheet. Add the onions and garlic, then drizzle some olive oil over the top of everything. Set your oven rack about four inches from the broiler, and place the pan in the oven on broil. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes until the tomatoes and peppers are charred. The onions didn’t seem to want to char much but they did soften up.
Add the contents of the pan to a food processor and pulse to break up. My Ninja is so small I didn’t have room to add the Ancho chiles until I did that. If you have a larger food processor you could add them at the same time. Anyways, take the Ancho chiles out of the water and remove the stem and seeds, and add them and the rest of the ingredients. Puree until the consistency of your choice. Serve warm, or chill until ready to eat.
Grilled Chicken Taco with Rice, Salsa and Avocado
p.s. Here is a picture of the Ancho chiles. Ancho chiles are actually dried Pasilla peppers, and can be found under either name, or both.
Ancho Pasilla Peppers
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