Roasted tomato salsa | Recipe by Lawrence Murphy

To some, salsa is a passionate dance that originated in Cuba. But to people like me, who are passionate about food, it is something to be enjoyed with tortilla chips and a cold beer.

Most of the time I make salsa using raw ingredients but in this recipe I cook the tomatoes to deepen the flavour while the chillies are charred to give a slightly smoky flavour.

Roasted tomato salsa

Ingredients

300g tomatoes

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic

2 red chillies

1 long red pepper

Tbsp olive oil

Tbsp red wine vinegar

Pinch sea salt

Method

1. Cut the tomatoes in half, lay on a baking tray cut side up and spoon over the olive oil.

2. Roast the tomatoes for 20 mins in a preheated oven 180C/gas 5 then turn over and add the garlic and onion. Roast for a further 20 mins.

3. While the tomatoes are cooking rub the chillies and red pepper all over with olive oil and blow-torch them until they are black all over. If you don’t have a blow torch roll them in a dry pan on a medium heat.

4. Allow the pepper and chillies to cool and scrape off the skins and roughly chop them.

5. Remove the skins from the tomatoes and squeeze the softened garlic from its skin.

6. Put the tomato pulp, onion, chilli and red pepper into a blender. Add the red wine vinegar and salt. Pulse the blender to make a course paste.