"Green tomatoes make a spicy, tangy sauce" by Winemaker's Journal

Green tomatoes make a spicy, tangy sauce

Blog: Winemaker's Journal

November 18, 2011

I was getting nervous about the four large bags of green tomatoes sitting on my back porch. Given time, I know that many of them will progress into perfectly good red tomatoes. And others will turn into perfectly mushy science projects.

So I began segregating earlier this week. Tomatoes that showed good promise for ripening were cleaned up and put in one box. Those that were getting ripe, but starting to show some decay were washed, cut up and made into sauce. I cooked it up good to destroy any mold and then put it in containers to freeze.

The third batch of tomatoes was the most interesting. These were fully green tomatoes that had blemishes and weren't likely to ripen well.

I used them to make a green tomato sauce, much like a Mexican salsa verde, with onion, garlic, peppers and cilantro. Green tomatoes are different from tomatillos — related to the gooseberry — normally used in salsa verde, but the end result is quite similar and delicious.

I kept the recipe simple to come up with a sauce that I could easily can or freeze and then adjust when cooking. I canned three quarts for future use.

I used a leftover pint to braise a center cut pork loin steak for supper that night. I added more onion, cilantro, a little chopped jalapeno and a cup of chicken stock to the braising liquid after quickly browning the chop on both sides. I put a lid on the saute pan and cooked the pork over low heat for nearly an hour while I finished my canning and steamed some rice.

Served over the rice, it was delicious. The bright, tangy sauce turned out to be a good match for the lightly-oaked Pine & Post Chardonnay I had opened.

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