This chunky green chile and tomato salsa from singer-writer Linda Ronstadt’s new book, Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands (out October 4), showcases Anaheim chiles, a key ingredient within the fare of the Sonoran Desert. “Anaheim chiles are an excellent border-crossing chile, well-liked throughout the Southwest and northern Mexico,” says Ronstadt. “They’re about six inches lengthy and never terribly sizzling, however deliciously important, whether or not recent and inexperienced or dried and crimson.” She serves this salsa with carne asada (grilled steak).
And one factor you’ll by no means discover in Ronstadt’s kitchen? Grocery store sauce. “Many individuals in Tucson prepare dinner with a model of crimson chile sauce that is available in a jar,” she notes. “I by no means preferred it.” Making your individual, utilizing the family recipe featured in Rondstadt’s new memoir, requires somewhat extra effort than store-bought sauce, but it surely’s value it, she guarantees.
Pink chile sauce is the spine of many dishes within the Sonoran Desert, says Ronstadt, turning up in all the pieces from enchiladas and tamales to braised beef and pork. You will discover the dried chiles, together with Mexican oregano (it has shiny citrusy notes in comparison with the Mediterranean selection), in lots of supermarkets, in any Mexican grocery and, after all, on-line.
This yields a thick, earthy, virtually paste-like sauce, and relying on the recipe wherein it’s used, you’ll be able to skinny it with hen or beef inventory to your required consistency.
Associated: Linda Ronstadt Talks to Parade About Her Songs, Dropping Her Voice and Her New E-book and Album
[Adapted from Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands by Linda Ronstadt and Lawrence Downes, with photographs by Bill Steen © 2022. Excerpted with permission from Heyday.]