Pico de Gallo

Pico de Gallo is a recipe appearing in The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl.

Official description
Pico de gallo should be sainted. The freshness of tomatoes, the clean flavor of cilantro, the cool, crisp wonderfulness of it all. I just couldn't get by without it.

I used to have trouble making pico de gallo. For the longest time I mistakenly assumed that tomatoes was its chief ingredient, and the rest of the elements - onions, jalapenos, and cilantro - were just there to inject subtle flavor. Whenever I'd try to make pico de gallo, it usually went something like this: Chop a whole bunch of tomato. Add a tiny bit of onion, a couple of spoons of chopped cilantro, a teeny-tiny spoonful of fresh jalapeno, a bunch of lime juice, and a ton of salt. And it wasn't good. Ever. And I'd cry over my tortilla chips. Oh, how I'd cry over my tortilla chips.

Fortunately, I met Ana. Oh, is Ana ever divine. She lets me practice my horrendous Spanish on her and she giggles at everything I say. Most important, she makes the most wickedly delicious Mexican food I've ever had, not the least of which is absolutely perfect pico de gallo.

Here's the most important thing I learned from Ana: tomatoes are only one aspect of pico de gallo. The jalapenos, cilantro, and onions all require equal billing with the tomatoes to make pico de gallo work. Once I learned this important truth, I hit the ground running and haven't stopped making pico de gallo ever since. It has replaced ketchup as the most popular condiment on the ranch.

I make up a couple of big bowls of pico de gallo every week, and I never run out of uses for it. On hot summer days when Marlboro Man [sic] (Drummond's husband) returns from working cattle, sometimes a bowl of pico de gallo and tortilla chips is all he wants. It's cool and satisfying, and usually tides him over till dinner. In addition, I use pico de gallo in any number of dishes I cook: with tacos, inside quesadillas, atop grilled chicken or a bowl of pinto beans - its versatility is endless, and it gives me a great excuse to plant way too many tomatoes every year.

Recipe

 * Yellow or red onions
 * Roma tomatoes (slightly underripe is fine)
 * Cilantro
 * Jalapenos
 * Lime
 * Salt

Dice up the onions. I like to keep things pretty fine so the pico de gallo will be more palatable to folks who don't like large chunks of onion and tomato.

Next, dice up an amount of tomatoes equal in quantity to the onions.

And grab a bunch of cilantro equal in quantity to the tomatoes and chop it up pretty finely.

Now, slice 1 or 2 jalapenos in half (see warning about jalapenos in the headnote in [the recipe BBQ Jalapeno Poppers]). With a spoon, scrape out the seeds. (If you like things spicy, leave in some of the white membranes).

Dice the jalapenos very finely; you want a hint of heat and jalapeno flavor, but you don't want to cause any fires.

Now dump the four ingredients into a bowl. Notice that there's an equal quantity of onion, tomato, and cilantro. This is the secret of perfect pico de gallo.

Slice a lime in half anf squeeze the juice from half a lime into the bowl.

Sprinkle with salt, and stir together until combined. Be sure to taste the pico de gallo and adjust the seasonings, adding salt or more diced jalapeno if needed. (I always taste it with chips so the salt quantity is factored in.)

Then, do what I do: Repeat this process every day. Soon, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Pico de gallo won't keep very long in the fridge - probably 24 hours or so. After that, the sugars start to break down and it turns into a soupy mess. So it's best to make it the same day you'll want to serve it, though you certainly could do so several hours before.