Recipe by Lauryn Smith for Wyman’s
I love two things about pico de gallo - how fresh all the ingredients taste, and how perfectly it lends itself to improvisation depending on what is in season, what you are serving, or what you just happen to have laying around. I found the balance of this recipe to be just to my taste, with some sweet, and spicy. Adjusting the spice level up or down to your preference, making things a little sweeter (and healthier) with more blueberries and/or mangos, omitting an ingredient like cilantro or adding fresh bell peppers or garlic are all going to yield a very delicious pico de gallo.
Note that this recipe breaks out pretty easily into parts (one part Wyman’s Wild Maine Blueberries to one part Wyman’s mango to 2 parts tomato) – this is going to be a really easy recipe to create in a large format for a summer barbecue, potluck, or fiesta. For serving, this is going to be great on fish tacos, can hold its own on a table, or can be used to just brighten (and lighten) up a plate. It’s one of the most effortlessly photogenic dishes that have come out of my kitchen!
With no cooking involved, I am looking forward to making this salsa on a camping trip or sailing trip this summer. (Have to bring the berries and mango for my hand blender anyway!).
Ingredients:
The most time consuming part of the preparation of this recipe will be cutting the tomatoes. I’ve indicated cherry tomatoes for one reason – when tomatoes are not in season cherry tomatoes are superior to even hothouse tomatoes in a dish where the freshness and the consistency are so important. Often times, you can also get multi-colored cherry tomatoes, which brighten up an already beautiful dish. In August, I’ll be making this with heirloom tomatoes from the farmer’s market. The cherry tomatoes should be quartered (if you have any particularly large ones, they may need to be cut into 6 pieces.
Once you’ve cut the tomatoes, you can then add the Wyman’s blueberries and mango. These will require no knife skills -– they end up coming right out of the bag in perfect sizes!
The jalapeños, and red onion should be diced in fairly small pieces. To reduce the spice level of the jalapeño, this should be cored first (the white membrane is the spiciest part of any chili), also deseed it for a more attractive pico. Next, the cilantro should be chopped roughly. Now, all that needs to happen is that all of the ingredients are mixed together. I like to let things sit for about 15 minutes to let the flavors settle in. This is not a recipe you will want to make a day in advance, it will lose some of the beautiful color diversity as the mango and red onion absorb all the antioxidants (and deep purple color) of the wild blueberries.
