Green Zebra Salsa: So Good, You Can Eat It With A Spoon

If you’ve never heard of the Green Zebra tomato, you’re in for a treat. That is, if one of your local farmer’s market vendors grows them.

My favorite stand at the Cedar Falls Farmer’s Market is Nita Young’s. I call her the herb lady, because she sells lots of fresh herbs and can tell you not only how to cook with them, but how to heal with them. In fact, Nita will consult with you on anything related to food and health. Just last week she gave me the lowdown on a variety of natural sugar substitutes, which I will blog about later this fall once I’ve had the chance to bake with several of them.

It was Nita, then, who introduced me to the Green Zebra tomato. One of the most gorgeous tomatoes out there, it’s green with dark green and yellow stripes (it kind of looks like green animal print; hence the name). It’s a smaller, firm tomato that’s tart yet sweet. It’s absolutely fabulous in salsas and relishes, although I tend to use heirloom tomatoes in my salsa anyway because I think the flavor is much better and makes the homemade salsa that much more unique. In the photo above, you see a mixture of heirloom, cherry, tomatillos and the Green Zebra tomatoes  used in this salsa. The Green Zebras are the ones that look like green apples.

To make this salsa, I improvised using a variety of veggies and other tomatoes from the Farmer’s Market and I left out the onion! I also used roasted peppers, using half of the peppers in this salsa and the other half in a chili soup I made the same night. This recipe doesn’t need lemon because the Green Zebras and tomatillos are so tart, but you might add a little lemon to preserve it … that is, IF you can keep any around for more than one night!

Here are the basic ingredients and directions:

Ingredients:

1/2 roasted red pepper
1 roasted green chile
1 or 2 jalapenos (depending on how hot you like it)
1 clove garlic
1 tsp. cumin
2 tbsp. cilantro, chopped
5 red zebra tomatoes
4 small tomatillos
1 large heirloom tomato, peeled (whatever variety you can get your hands on)
1/2 tsp of kosher salt (add more salt to taste)

Directions:

1. Put chile, peppers, garlic, salt and spices into a food processor and pulse until well minced.
2. Add cilantro and tomatoes and puree until blended but not liquefied.
3. You can serve this with any Mexican entree you’d like, though we eat it with red bean and rice chips and, as Chris is demonstrating, with a spoon!

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