Tommy Gun Tomatillos

This weekend, on a testosterone-heavy desert camping sojourn, our friend Spencer enlightened us regarding a high-school epiphany he once had: that Salsa Verde Doritos and a 20-ounce Coca-Cola are the “perfect combination” of flavors.
We’re still not entirely sure what this means. But the comment did inspire us, when perusing the produce aisle of the Yucca Valley Vons, to embark on our own salsa verde fantasy. We bought a bag of ripe tomatillos, just starting to poke through their green husks, and lugged them out to the Joshua Tree desert clubhouse we rented for the weekend. Once properly drunk and hungry we gave these suckers a spin on the grill.
Tossed with good olive oil and grilled until they started popping, we blended our tomatillos with blackened peppers and onion and a touch of blood orange juice. The result was a pleasantly familiar tart sauce somewhere between salsa and roasted green chile. We slathered the stuff on corn chips and ladled it onto steaming campfire beans. Having nothing close to corn syrup in our possession we tried our salsa verde instead with a couple finer beverages… Scotch. One-year-aged Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere. And Tequila reposado from a bottle shaped like a Tommy gun.

8-10 tomatillos
2 Pasilla peppers
1 red onion
1 jalapeno
1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
1 bunch cilantro (about 1 cup)
4-5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 blood orange
1. Crank your outdoor grill to high.
2. In a large mixing bowl combine tomatillos, peppers, onion and jalapenos and toss well with olive oil. Once grill is hot, throw all the veggies on and close the lid. Check every 3-4 minutes and turn as needed.
3. Remove tomatillos one by one as they burst over the heat. Make sure to scoop them, up, gently, before they lose their juice. Remove the rest of your veggies as they finish roasting and throw everything back into the mixing bowl.
4. Blend everything together with a handheld mixer or in a cuisinart. Add raw garlic, cilantro, fresh juice from a blood orange (one lime works too) and more salt if needed. Continue pulsing until smooth, with no chunks. Serve with chips.
Beverage: Jolly Pumpkin’s Bam Biere
Soundtrack: Dinosaur Jr.’s “Green Mind”