By Charred green salsa (salsa verde tatemada)
Tomatillos and chiles blackened on a dry pan, not boiled. Smokier, deeper and thicker than any other green salsa.
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 15 min
- Makes
- about 1½ cups
- Difficulty
- Easy
It burns and it lingers. Most table salsas live here.
Ingredients
Makes about 1½ cups
- 1 lb tomatillo about 10 medium, husked and rinsed
- 4 serrano pepper
- ⅓ bunch cilantro
- 3 cloves garlic unpeeled
- ½ white onion cut into thick slabs
- 1½ tsp salt
Keeps 5 days refrigerated
Method
- 1
Husk and rinse the tomatillos until they stop feeling sticky. Dry them well — wet tomatillos steam instead of charring.
- 2
Heat a comal, cast iron skillet or heavy pan over medium-high with no oil at all. It has to be genuinely hot before anything goes on.
- 3
Put on the tomatillos, whole serranos, unpeeled garlic and onion slabs. Do not move them for 4 minutes. Then turn and char the other side.
- 4
Pull each item as it is ready: garlic first at about 6 minutes, chiles next, then onion, then the tomatillos last at 12 to 15 minutes, when they are blackened in patches and collapsing.
- 5
Squeeze the garlic out of its skins. Blend everything — including all the blackened skin and any juice on the pan — with the salt, about 30 seconds. Leave it coarse.
- 6
Add the cilantro and pulse twice. Taste for salt: charred salsas need more than raw ones.
- 7
Do not add water. If it is too thick, a tablespoon at a time — but this salsa is supposed to be thick.
Good with
Grilled meat · Carne asada tacos · Roasted potatoes · Eggs
Same three ingredients as every other green salsa on this site — tomatillo, serrano, cilantro — and a completely different result, because of one decision: dry heat instead of water.
Tatemar means to char over direct heat. No oil, no liquid, just a hot surface, until the outside blisters and blackens while the inside collapses and sweetens.
The pan must be dry and hot
No oil. Oil fries, and frying is a different thing — it gives you an evenly browned surface, not blistered black patches.
Get a comal or a cast iron skillet properly hot before anything touches it, and dry the tomatillos thoroughly. A wet tomatillo on a medium pan releases its water and simmers in it, and you end up with a pale, watery salsa and no char at all.
Do not crowd the pan. Crowding traps steam, which does the same thing. Two batches beat one full pan.
Do not move them
Put everything down and leave it alone for four minutes.
Char needs sustained contact. Shuffling things around every thirty seconds keeps any one spot from getting hot enough to blacken, and produces something that is browned all over but charred nowhere.
Pull things as they finish
Everything blackens at a different speed, and leaving it all on until the tomatillos are done means burnt garlic.
Rough order: garlic at about 6 minutes, then the chiles, then the onion, and the tomatillos last at 12 to 15, when they have blackened patches and are starting to slump and leak.
The black goes in the blender
All of it. Skin, char, and whatever juice has run onto the pan.
This is worth stating plainly because it is the opposite of the poblano instruction elsewhere on this site. A poblano’s skin is tough and inedible and gets peeled. Tomatillo skin is thin, and its char is the entire flavor you spent fifteen minutes making.
Keep it coarse and thick
Thirty seconds in the blender, no more, and no added water.
This salsa is supposed to have body and visible texture — flecks of black, pieces of chile skin. A charred salsa blended smooth and thinned with water loses what made it worth the effort.
Salt it more than a raw salsa
Char brings a mild bitterness, and bitterness dulls the perception of salt. What tastes correctly seasoned in the blender will taste flat on a taco.
Add salt, wait a minute, taste again.
What it goes with
Carne asada above all — charred salsa with charred meat is one of the most reliable pairings in Mexican cooking.
Also grilled anything, roasted potatoes, and eggs.
Keeping it
Five days refrigerated — longer than the raw version because the ingredients were cooked, shorter than a fried salsa because nothing was fried. It freezes acceptably, losing a little texture.
Common questions
What does tatemada mean?
Charred, or blackened over direct heat. It refers to a specific technique: dry heat, no oil, no water, until the outside blisters and blackens. It is one of the oldest cooking methods in Mexico and it is what a comal is for.
Should I peel the charred skins off?
No. The black is the flavor. This is the opposite of what you do with a poblano, where the skin is tough and gets discarded. Tomatillo and tomato skins are thin, and the char is exactly what you are trying to get into the salsa. Peeling it off leaves you with a boiled salsa that took four times as long.
Can I do this under a broiler?
Yes, and it is easier for a large batch. Put everything on a sheet pan close to the element and turn once. The one thing you lose is the dry contact heat of a pan, which chars in patches rather than evenly — patchy is better here, because you want blistered spots against unburnt flesh.
Why is mine watery?
The pan was not hot enough, or the tomatillos were wet, so they released water and boiled in it instead of charring. Dry them thoroughly, get the pan properly hot, and do not crowd it — cook in two batches rather than one crowded one.
How is this different from the cooked version?
Boiled salsa verde is round, sweet and smooth. Charred is smoky, thicker, and has an edge of bitterness from the blackened skin that plays against the tomatillo's acid. It is the more assertive salsa and the better one next to grilled meat.