When Chef Alan Lazarus loaded me up with his homegrown tomatoes, he gave me a couple of purple Brandywine heirlooms. I used one of them along with some purple onions to make pico de gallo. It looked a little purple at first, but after a couple hours in the fridge the purple onions started bleeding into the lime juice and the whole thing got wonderfully weird-looking. If you have a purple tomato, try it yourself. Add some purple peppers or purple Thai basil if you have any. Here’s a recipe:
Purple Pico
Half a cup purple onion
Juice of two limes
Cup and half chopped purple heirloom tomatoes (one extra large tomato)
1 large fresh serrano pepper, stemmed and halved
1 clove garlic, minced
Sea salt to taste
Quarter cup chopped herbs (such as cilantro, parsley, basil or purple basil)
Mince the onion, combine with the lime juice and allow to marinate for at least ten minutes. Chop the tomato into fine dice. (It should yield around one and a half cups.) Remove the seeds and pith from the serrano if you want a milder salsa, leave them intact if you like it hot. Mince the serrano. Combine the tomato, the onion and lime mixture, the serrano and the garlic and stir well. Season with salt to taste. Chill the pico in the refrigerator for a half and hour until the flavors blend and the purple colors brighten. Stir in the herbs just before serving.
Makes about 2 cups of salsa
Robb;
This looks great! Back in the day at Jeffery’s in Austin we would dice and soak the onions in lime juice for at least 20 minutes, but then we would discard that lime juice, adding fresh juice to the the finished product. A bit more labor intensive, but well worth the trouble!
Cheers!
There is also a purple jalapeno on the market – purple first instead of green then ripening to red. We’ve got some over at the Outpost – remind me next time you stop by. Seems like there should be something you could do with onion-infused lime juice instead of discarding it – a little soy and it sounds likes a fajita marinade!