Chimol is El Salvador’s “fresh salsa.” Mexico’s “pico de gallo.” Chimol, fresh salsa, pico de gallo, whatever you wanna call it, it’s still amazing. Go ahead and make it, your friends and family will think you’re “oh so cultured” and well travelled. It’s perfect with everything… at least in my family we think it goes with everything. It’s what we eat our empanada’s with.
Ingredients:
- 8 roma tomatoes
- 1 bunch green onions
- 1 bunch cilantro
- 3-4 lemons
- salt to taste
- Finely chop all the ingredients, mix in a large bowl, add the juice of lemons and salt to taste, and you’re all done.
There, you’ve travelled to El Salvador and made one of their staple foods. Congrats, you now have the approval of Salvadoreans, which is kind of big deal. There are some tips and tricks to ensuring that any Latina grandmother will approve though. I’ll tell let you in on them if you agree to at least try this. And don’t start with “can I leave out the cilantro?” The answer is NO. You may not.
Tip #1. Make sure you FINELY chop the tomatoes, green onions and cilantro. You don’t want big chunks of tomato or onion, that’s just unrefined, and “ain’t nobody got time for that!” (That still works, thank you Sweet Brown.)
Tip #2. I gave you a guesstimate of lemons…. you may need more, you may need less. It all depends on how juicy your lemons are.
Tip #3. Taste as you go. If you wanna be a legit Latina in the kitchen, add some salt, add some lemon juice, dance to some gypsy kings or Julio Iglesias and then taste it. Its better to start with not enough salt and lemon than to have too much, you can always add more, but it’s a lot harder to take some away. And by “a lot harder’ I mean nearly impossible.
I had to make a huge batch for when my grandma was up and we made empanada’s, so the pictures below show a heck of a lot more ingredients. I chopped 30 tomatoes that day, along with 4 bunches of green onions and cilantro. You can congratulate me later.
Please attempt this. Eat it with tortilla chips, eat it with your nachos. Or if you REALLY, really wanna impress us, make empanada’s along with this, eat one of the best meals you’ll ever eat made by your own two hands, and then take the next 3 months off, cuz you’ll be beat. Enjoy!