The perfect tomato salsa

• By Frances Bissell

Once you’ve made salsa yourself, you’ll find that it is incredibly easy and absolutely delicious. You can vary your salsa ingredients, but the structure should be sharp/hot/sour/savoury/sweet, and based on fruit. You should have a mix of: sharp fruit, like under-ripe mango, firm peaches, pineapple, kiwi or under-ripe tomato; hot red or green chillies; sour citrus juice, like lime or lemon; savoury onions, like red onions, spring onions, shallots or leeks; and sweetness provided by a little unrefined sugar, to bring out the juices. Then you need some salt and some fresh herbs, particularly chopped coriander and mint.

For 8 people, you will need:

12 ripe tomatoes, one large onion (peeled and thinly sliced), two tablespoonfuls of sunflower or groundnut oil, one or two green or red chillies (deseeded and sliced), salt and pepper, two teaspoonfuls of light muscovado sugar, lime or lemon juice, one tablespoonful of fresh coriander or mint (chopped).

Remove the stalk end of the tomatoes and core beneath it, then roughly chop them in a food processor, or in a shallow dish so that the juice is not lost. You can discard the seeds first, if you wish, but rub them through a sieve to retain the sharp juice which surrounds them, which you can add to the salsa or use as a salad dressing. Fry the onion until it is soft, and then stir in half of the tomatoes and the chillies, and cook for about 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the uncooked tomatoes. Season to taste with salt, pepper, sugar and lime or lemon juice, and stir in the herbs. If the tomatoes are sharp, you may not need much of the latter. If you have yellow tomatoes, add them to unripe green tomatoes and red tomatoes, for a fresh-tasting and colourful salsa.