The Cilantro Quandary

Giant Pile of Cilantro!

Probably somewhere (Mexico?) the salsa ingredients Tomato, Onion, Hot Peppers, and Cilantro ALL GROW AT THE SAME TIME. You know, so you can MAKE SALSA by using the ingredients in your own garden. In our wacky modern age, Texans get the ingredients for salsa at the HEB and give nary a thought to it, because most people are completely oblivious to what grows where when.

But in actuality, in Central Texas, hot peppers and tomatoes ripen in the “warm season” (May-November) and onions and cilantro can only be grown in the “cool season” (November-March) Because of this, it is not possible to make fresh salsa from your own garden, except for like ONE DAY in April.

Now, onions can be dried and stored, so they aren’t as problematic in a temporal sense; but cilantro cannot be dried, it must be fresh or it loses its flavor. How Can One Possibly Solve this Quandary?

What you do is, you pick all the leaves off the stems. It is not hard and doesn't take all that long either. This is a restaurant skill that you learn like the FIRST WEEK you work in a kitchen, it is really quite simple.

The solution I have come to is this: I pick the cilantro at the peak of it’s perfection (it goes to seed quickly) and de-stem and FREEZE it. This is the G*R*E*A*T*E*S*T solution ever, because then you have “fresh” homegrown organic Cilantro for all your Mexican, Indian and Thai dishes. (The frozen cilantro leaves must be used in cooked or “cooked-ish” preparations like salsa, soups and curry; it won’t work in Thai Beef Salad or any dish where it absolutely HAS TO be raw.)

Here I have put the leaves into ONE freezer bag, and the STEMS into another, for the making of vegetable stock

I always put in into a gallon sized zippy bag, in a thinnish layer. That way when you need some, you can just break off a piece, like breaking off a piece of Peanut Brittle.

It stays a nice, bright green for a long time, too.

Thai Beef Salad

Thai Beef Salad, my dinner tonight, pictured with a wicked hot Thai pepper out of the garden

I love this, and it is a perfect way to prepare leftover sirloin, which is common in my house because I love grilled steak. (My other favorite way to use leftover steak is a steak sandwich with mayonnaise on squishy white bread. And potato chips.) Most of the ingredients are right in the Central Texas garden in fall and winter.

Chopped up hot pepper, onion, mint, sacred basil, cilantro, and cucumber

You will need:

Leftover grilled sirloin, rare (buy grass-fed if you can find it. It has TWICE the flavor of conventional, and more omerga-3 oils, and JUST DO AS I COMMAND!)

Lettuce

A sweet onion (a 1014 or a Bermuda or a few shallots)

10 strands (or more) of Cilantro

A fat sprig or two (or four) of Mint

Sacred Basil if available, one sprig (or 3)

A cucumber

A carrot

Fresh hot peppers (2) or ONE SMALL THAI pepper (!)

Pickled hot peppers if you don’t have fresh

One clove of garlic

Fish sauce (one or two teaspoons)

Lime or lemon or Meyer lemon (all the juice of one)

Tablespoon of sugar

Adding the sliced rare sirloin

This salad is fun to make because everything is cold, there is no rush and no worries about overcooking anything, you can just kind of zone out while you are chopping.

Thinly slice clove of garlic and fresh hot pepper. Then thinly slice roughly a quarter of the sweet onion (less if it is big) and the cucumber and toss all the chopped up things in a bowl. Add pickled hot pepper if your fresh pepper isn’t spicy.

(HAVE I MENTIONED THAT ONE SMALL THAI PEPPER IS ENOUGH TO MAKE IT VERY, VERY HOT?)

A bed of just-picked Red Oak Leaf and Buttercrunch lettuce

Put the carrot through the fine grater and add. Deleaf and chop up the cilantro, mint, and Thai basil and add. Slice up the leftover sirloin as thinly as you can without undue strain, and toss in the rest of the stuff. In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, lime juice, and fish sauce. Pour over the salad and toss. Serve on a bed of lettuce.