Smoked tomato and char-grilled pepper salsa

For Christmas my partner and I bought ourselves a charcoal barbeque.  After spending a (delightful) afternoon assembling the kitset creation and trying to follow the less-than-helpful instructions, we had worked up quite an appetite. Before the dreaded hungry-anger (hanger) could take hold we got cooking, creating a smokey feast perfect for a kiwi summer! I am not a fan of bland, store bought barbeque sauce, and wanted to create something that would be great mates with all kinds of barbequed meat, so I experimented with smoking tomatoes and char-grilling peppers, arriving at this scrumptious salsa.  We served it up alongside barbequed, shredded chicken thighs in soft flour tortillas.  It is also great as a dip with corn chips, or to top off a perfectly cooked steak.

Ingredients

Yields approx. 2 cups

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• 500g tomatoes
• 3 medium-sized red peppers
• 1 red chilli
• 1 green chilli
• Olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Finely gated zest and juice of 2 limes
• ¼ cup pitted kalamata olives, very finely diced
• 5 stalks spring onion, finely diced
• ¼ cup fresh coriander, finely chopped
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• Salt, pepper, brown sugar to taste
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• Wood chips for smoking (I used Manuka)

Method

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• This salsa is great made on a charcoal barbeque to get really deep, smokey flavours.
• 1. With a sharp knife make a small ‘x’ incision on the bottom of each tomato. (This will make skinning them easy later.) Rub the red peppers and chillies with a little olive oil.
• 2. Smoke tomatoes for between 45 minutes and 1 hour. Time required will depend on the size and intensity of your barbeque. They should be cooked but not mushy, with a delicate smoked flavour.
• 3. Blacken the chillies and peppers on the barbeque. Place in a bowl and cover tightly with cling film. Set aside to cool.
• 4. Once cool enough to handle, core and skin the red peppers, then finely chop. Core, skin and de-seed the chilli peppers while wearing protective gloves. Mince.
• 5. Peel and core tomatoes and roughly chop into a bowl. Add remaining salsa ingredients and mix well. Season to taste – a sprinkling of brown sugar works a treat if your tomatoes are not super sweet.
• Serve at room temperature with barbequed meats or as a dip with corn chips and sour cream. Keeps well in the fridge for up to a week.