Hey guys, welcome to my kitchen. I'm Lennis, and today I'm going to show you how to make
a pico de gallo. The reason why I want to share with you this recipe is because during
Memorial Day weekend I was invited to a last minute BBQ and I was working that day, so
I had to rush to the supermarket. I wanted to bring some guacamole and of course everybody
decided to use avocados that weekend so the guacamole were actually really green, so
I instead made a pico de gallo with pretty much similar ingredients as the guacamole without the avocado.
So I was using, I bought 2 tomatoes, I bought a red onion, I bought a lime, and my friend
obviously had salt at his house, and I also bought cilantro. So what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna show you what I did and you can see how quick and easy it is. And it's something
you can probably bring to a BBQ or to your friend's house if they ask you to come over
just you wish to bring something that's fresh freshly made, you make it and they'll probably
appreciate it more because is your own creation, so stay tuned and follow my steps. Ok, so
I'm going to use about less than half an onion, so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to cut the
onion, and again make sure you wash all the ingredients before you use them so they are
all cleaned for the recipe, and I'm gonna chop it up very small. I know some people
don't really like onions. I will tell you, you barely taste it in this recipe because
I am using lime juice, and usually the lime juice is so strong that you will not really
taste the onion as a main ingredient. The cilantro also masks the flavor of the onions so it's
a, it's again don't be afraid of using raw onions when you are cooking and when you are
making dishes like this because the flavor trust me is going to be masked. Another thing
that I do is when I have a whole onion I actually may chop the entire onion and save the rest
in the refrigerator so I can use it later when I'm cooking, making vegetable, I'm making
some like even like home fries style potatoes, sweet potatoes, mix them with rice and veggies,
or chicken, anything, I mean you've seen that I use onions a lot so it's almost like garlic
for me. So again it's an easy thing to do and to prep for other meals. So I'm gonna
use this container, and drop the onions in here. And then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
cut half the lime, and I'm gonna squeeze half a lime juice in there. Oops, it's all good,
it's all safe. So I use half a lime, I'll squeeze it in, and I'll mix it up a little
bit and this really is going to mask the flavor. I don't know if it's kind of like when you
make ceviche, I'm not an expert on making ceviche but I think the lime somehow cooks
the vegetables and the raw fish and the fresh fish so. Second thing I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna cut the tomatoes. Again make sure you wash them and I don't know who told me this.
I'm very peculiar with tomatoes because somebody told me that if you eat the seeds they could
actually get stuck in your intestine and give you appendicitis so I don't know if it's true
or not. It may be an urban legend but once I heard it I just decided to start taking
the tomato seeds off and just enjoy the fresh tomato. So I cut it in half, then I cut it
in quarters, then I slice it and chop it up in smaller portions. And see, this is another
important thing of having a good knife. It's a lot easier to cut vegetables. I'm usually
not good with sharp knives but I decided to upgrade and get really good knives and they
make my life a lot easier now. So again cut the tomato in half, then in quarters, slice
it, and get the cubes out and this is what we are going to do.
We are going to do the
same thing with the second tomato and then when I go and use the cilantro, I personally
like to use the whole cilantro and that's because I like the crunchiness of the stem,
not everybody likes that, some people just use the leaves. I like pretty much to use
everything, as you've seen in my other recipes I like to minimize the waste when I'm cooking,
so I'm gonna use the stem for this recipe. Obviously I'm gonna get rid off the roots,
but I do not take the time to actually pick out the leaves, I just use the whole thing.
And I like it, I like the crunchiness of it, I like how it tastes, so it's a, it's a personal
preference, and that's the beauty of cooking, it's all about a preference and it's whatever
you like, if you experiment and try different things then you learn what you actually like
to eat and I was a picky eater growing up, so I actually had to teach myself, after I
went to college, on how to eat properly, slowly, took a few years to get there, but I'm, I
think I'm pretty happy now with my variety. There's only like two or three things on my
list that I won't eat besides that I will try anything, but I try to mostly eat healthy
stuff and give foods my own twist, so now we are going to go with the cilantro. We gotta
make sure to get rid off the roots, we don't want to use the roots, I just, again, use
the whole stem but this part I don't so, as you can see I just leave the stem and I just
start chopping it up.
I don't think it really changes the flavor, for me personally.
If you are one of those people that are genetically prone to not liking cilantro, maybe you can
use parsley for this recipe or just use corn, you could use corn too. But you can hear
when I'm cutting the cilantro, the crunchiness of it, so that's something that I like when
I make this pico so I'm trying to get big pieces really chopped up and ready. And then
the last thing we are going to do is we are going to add the onions, and NOT THE ONIONS
sorry, the salt and squeeze the other half lime in it.
So I'm gonna mix this up,
hopefully you can see it better, and I'm a little lazy right now, I guess I should go and grab a
spoon so I'm just gonna use what I have at hand. And now I just spilled the salt, but
anyways, I'm gonna grab the salt, add it, and I'm going to throw the rest of the salt
that I had in here. I like to use about a quarter of a teaspoon of salt, because my
family suffers from high blood pressure, so I am genetically prone to have that in me,
so I try to watch out and measure how much salt I consume. And then last thing you do
is just squeeze the other half lime
and we are ready, pretty much, as you can see, it
just takes five ten minutes, I actually did it at my friend's kitchen, and there was a
lot of people cooking that day, with the grilling and smoking some ribs, and doing a lot of
things so I actually was in the kitchen cooking while another of the guys that was there was also
cooking and I had never met him before but we started talking and kind of bonded, so
that's one of the reasons why I like to cook too cause is a way to bond with people and to just have fun,
and get to know one another, and learn new tricks. I saw him make cornbread
literally in 10 minutes and then he just put it in the oven and it was delicious. So, here
it is, here is the pico and I hope you enjoy this recipe. See you soon. Bye!