Making Salsa

I have not been doing any cooking here in the apartment other than making salads or heating something up in the microwave.  The valve to turn on the gas for the stove is inconveniently located behind it.  When I was renting the apartment and going back and forth between Mexico City and Ohio, it became a bother to pull out the stove to turn the gas on and off every time I arrived and left.  Well, now that I am living here permanently, I decided it was time to start using my kitchen.  Last weekend Alejandro and I finally pulled out the stove, and he reached behind to turn on the gas.

The first thing I prepared, now that I am cooking with gas, was homemade "salsa de molcajete".  A "molcajete" is a Mexican mortar and pestle made from volcanic stone.  Years ago, I bought a "molcajete", and it has been sitting on the kitchen counter.  I had only used it once.

 This week I went to the market and bought the produce that I would need to make my salsa.

The stovetop, like most Mexican stoves, has a "comal" or griddle in the center for heating tortillas, or for roasting vegetables.  I covered the "comal" with aluminum foil.  I put four cloves of peeled garlic and a sliced, medium onion on the griddle and roasted them until they were well charred.

I took the roasted garlic and ground it up in the "molcajete".  Then I added the onion and ground it up with the garlic.

Next, I roasted two serrano peppers until charred.  The recipe called for three peppers, but the last time I made this salsa, it was very fiery.  

(You can see why I covered the griddle with aluminum foil.)

The peppers are then ground up with the onions and garlic.

Finally, I roasted five Roma tomatoes.

The tomatoes are then ground up with the rest of the mixture, and voila, the salsa is complete!

Even though I only used two serrano peppers, it was still quite spicy.  If you don't have a "molcajete", you could, I suppose, use a blender.  But don't over process it.  The salsa should be chunky.