Sunday, May 9, 2010

Chilean Tomato and Onion Salad

I just got back from two weeks in Chile.  We had a great time and ate lots of great food. We had a lot of traditional chilean food including pastel de choclo, pastel de papa, humitas, empanadas, sopapillas, longanisa, pepre, palta, palta reina, completo, panqueque, milo hojas, chilean rice and much more.  I hope to learn how to make all of them. I'm going to start with the traditional Chilean Tomato and Onion Salad. I found this on a cooking blog about Chilean food called The Chilean Way.  I used the recipe below, but in the future I will probably make it without the red wine vinegar as this is how my mother in law makes it and I have become accustomed to the taste.  She also uses sugar, the original recipe only called for salt.  I like it both ways!


Chilean Tomato and Onion Salad
From: My Mother-in-Law and The Chilean Way

Ingredients:
3 Large ripe tomatoes, peeled and sliced
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2-4 Tbsp. Olive Oil
2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar (optional)
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro
salt and pepper and sugar

Directions:
1. Slice the onions and tomatoes.  Place tomatoes in a small bowl.  Place the onions in a small holed strainer.  Sprinkle with a lot of salt and sugar.

2.   Squeeze the rings in your hands and against the strainer and run them under lukewarm water until the onions almost wilt like they were cooked (this takes a lot of the 'bite' out of the onions).

3. Add onions to the tomatoes, add olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, cilantro, and season with salt and pepper.  Let stand at least 5 minutes to marinate and serve.

2 comments:

  1. That looks so good... I think every culture has tomato and onion salad variation and for a good reason, they are awesome. BTW I grew up in Elmhurst ;)

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  2. You must remember to peel the tomatoes, Chileans never eat tomatoes in their salad before taking the skin off. Thanks for the recipe.

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