The best salsa is a cooked salsa and ya need dried chilis. You know those brown or reddish brown, leathery-looking things you see in the Mexican section of your grocery store? This is of course, if you are lucky enough to live in an area with a diverse population and not some hell-hole in Middle America or the South, where obtaining such things requires travel and unwanted stares.

Get yourself some anchos which are dried poblanos with mild heat and some chipotles, smoked jalapenos and remember that the seeds and inerts is what make those fuckers hot, so you can enjoy the hell outta that amazing smoky taste without burning the hell out of you tastebuds and screwing up that next sip of IPA by using select parts of those killer pods.

So grab 4 plum (Roma) tomatoes, a couple cloves of fresh garlic (peeled, obviously) and a smallish onion. Get a rough chop on the tomatoes and onion, squeeze out the weird, jelly-seed stuff from the tomato sections. Throw all this in a medium saucepan, set aside.

Now, those beautiful chilis, take like 3 anchos and 2 chipotles and put on those friggin’ silly-ass latex or loose, plastic Subway-sandwich-maker-type of gloves that we all in some cabinet or cupboard, collecting dust, since Covid and put those bitches on, trust me on this. Put the chili down on a cutting board and just split them down the center with a heavy hand and that nice butcher knife you used for everything else with a nice firm, rocking motion.

Now hold those chilis over your trash can and scrape those seeds out, on the anchos, you can leave some and be fine, but the chipotles, if you want it super-hot leave em in, other wise scrape out most and leave a few….more you leave, the hotter the salsa. Adjust to your liking.

Now throw those beautiful motherfuckers in the saucepan (yeah…the one with the dismembered tomatoes) with a teaspoon of kosher salt and about ¾ cup water and bring to a boil over medium heat, then bring it down to a simmer for like 15 minutes. Remove it from the heat, cover and let sit for another 15 minutes.

Now the fun part, take out your blender, which better be a half-way decent one and for god sakes, it better have a glass pitcher. Well it doesn’t have to, but the chilis will probably stain your cheap-ass plastic blender pitcher and why the fuck would you wanna use plastic anyway? Shit like absorbs stuff… creepy.

So, dump the saucepan contents into that blender and puree it. You can leave it on the chunkier side if you like, but these reconstituted, dried chilis can sometimes be tough when left in larger pieces even after that sauna they just left. Roll a ripe lime on the counter and cut it in half, squeeze the first half in and a nice couple pinches of kosher salt. Taste and repeat if you desire.

Now tell me that’s not the best muthafukkin’ salsa yo ass ever had.