The Lazy Gourmet: Easy Homemade Salsa Recipe

Reader Contribution by Robin Donovan And Juliana Gallin
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Robin Donovan and Juliana Gallin are the authors of The Lazy Gourmet: Magnificent Meals Made Easy—a hip, fun, and practical guide to cooking strikingly sophisticated, yet surprisingly simple dishes. You can visit the authors’ blog at www.twolazygourmets.com, like them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter. 

This sweet, tart, colorful salsa is one of our favorite condiments over here at Two Lazy Gourmets. It’s a surprisingly complex medley that transforms simple and familiar flavors into something really special—but takes only about ten minutes to prepare. This description, I might add, pretty much sums up the theme of our new cookbook The Lazy Gourmet: Magnificent Meals Made Easy—a hip, fun, and practical guide to cooking strikingly sophisticated, yet surprisingly simple dishes. We wrote the book to help conquer the misguided belief that preparing an elegant meal requires spending hours in the kitchen, sweating over elaborate and cumbersome recipes—and our Lemon-Raisin Salsa could be the poster child for this philosophy. Use it to transform everyday chicken or fish into an extraordinary entree, or plain old bread and cheese into a sublime sandwich. 


Lemon-Raisin Salsa transforms chicken, fish, veggies, and sandwiches into something extraordinary.
Photo by
Debbie Koenig 

Lemon-Raisin Salsa
From
The Lazy Gourmet: Magnificent Meals Made Easy (Viva Editions, 2011). 

One of the best things about this unusual and versatile salsa is that you get to jam-pack it with your favorite garden herb. We suggest cilantro, but you can use basil, parsley, or mint if you prefer. Serve it with baked or pan-fried fish, grilled or roasted chicken, smoked salmon or lox, hamburgers, vegetables and rice, dolloped onto crostini with goat cheese, or on our signature Prosciutto and Taleggio Sandwich (also in the book). MAKES 1 CUP SALSA

• 2 whole medium lemons
• 1/2 cup minced raisins
• 2 tablespoons minced onion
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 cup loosely packed minced cilantro

1. Slice off and discard all the lemon rind and bitter pith. Chop the remaining lemon flesh into small pieces.

2. Remove seeds and discard any thick pieces of membrane.

3. Scrape the chopped lemon and any juice that has collected on your cutting board into a small bowl.

4. Mix in raisins, onion, olive oil, sugar, salt, and cilantro.

Make it ahead: While it will stay delicious stored, covered, in the fridge for a couple of days, this salsa looks most vibrant and colorful within the first couple of hours after preparation. If you want to make it ahead and have it look great, add the cilantro (or another herb) just before serving.

  • Published on Jun 17, 2011
Tagged with: Reader Contributions
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