Say Good-Bye To Watery Salsa!

Tomatoes are so juicy because they consist of about 85% water. Now as far as I know water has never been known to enhance flavor in any dish. Water, as you know, dilutes things. So when you go to all the trouble of making delicious homemade salsa, do you want it to be 85% water? Probably not! When using fresh, cut, tomatoes in a recipe, give them a rest in a colander or strainer. You will be amazed at how much water drains out of cut tomatoes, peeled or not. Recently while making fresh salsa from diced, unpeeled, tomatoes I decided to measure the liquid that gathered in the bottom of the bowl I was draining my tomatoes into. From 6 cups of diced, unpeeled, tomatoes there was 2 ¼ cups of liquid! Yikes! Now you may be thinking, there goes the flavor! Wrong! The tomato flavor in the salsa seems to intensify with the water removed. I gave the liquid a taste and was surprised that it did not have a strong tomato flavor, but very mild. So cut or chop your fresh tomatoes, place them in a strainer, give them just a bit of salt and watch the water drain out. While making my fresh salsa I cored my tomatoes, and gave each tomato a gentle squeeze to remove most of the seeds, but not a squeeze hard enough to push out the pulp. When I put my diced, unpeeled, tomatoes in the colander, I used about ¾ teaspoon of salt stirred into the 6 cups of tomatoes. I let the tomatoes drain out on my counter for about an hour. Another surprise was the drained tomatoes tasted like there was no salt in them. It all must have drained away with the water. Usually a telltale sign of homemade salsa from fresh tomatoes is that is it runny and thin. Draining your tomatoes first will result in a thick, bright, flavorful, salsa. Try it!