Mexico
Tostadas de Pollo
Crisp corn tortillas piled with chicken, refried beans, queso fresco and avocado
60 min·6 servings
salsa verde
Green Mexican sauce of tomatillos, green chillies, onion, coriander and salt, blended raw or cooked; tart, fresh and more or less hot.
In Mexico, salsa verde is a table and cooking sauce built on tomatillos, small green fruits in a papery husk, together with fresh green chillies such as serrano or jalapeño, onion, garlic and coriander leaf. It has nothing to do with the Italian herb sauce of the same name made from parsley, capers and oil, and the two cannot stand in for each other. Blended raw it tastes bright, green and distinctly sour, while cooked or made from roasted tomatillos it turns rounder, slightly sweeter and deeper in tone; the texture ranges from thin to chunky. It is served with tacos, eggs and meat and used as the sauce for enchiladas, chilaquiles or braised pork. Ready-made jars are sold in shops carrying Mexican or Latin American products and by mail order, sometimes also in the international aisle of supermarkets; tomatillos for a homemade version are usually found there in tins, only rarely fresh.
Substitute:
The best option is to make it yourself from tinned tomatillos, drained and blended with chilli, onion and coriander, which comes very close to the original. Without tomatillos, unripe green tomatoes with a little lime juice can be used; the sauce turns more watery and more sharply sour and lacks the gently fruity, almost citrus-like depth of tomatillos, so it is an approximation rather than a substitute. A red tomato salsa is not equivalent, as it tastes sweeter and changes the dish noticeably.
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