CHILE DE ARBOL SALSA

When I was visiting Eric in LA a couple weeks ago he bought a salsa from Super King, the Armenian grocery store near his house.  They also have other Ethnic foods there as well, and we fell in love with this salsa!  I brought a couple containers home in a small insulated bag with a blue ice pack, because I was so determined to try and duplicate it.  JT loves it as well, so I read the ingredients on the container and got to work.  We sampled both the bought version and mine with tortilla chips and decided this was a pretty close duplicate.  This only makes about 12 oz. so you might prefer to double it.  I will cut back on the chiles because it is too hot for JT again (Sissy), but it hasn’t stopped him from eating it!

3 Roma tomatoes

3 lg. garlic cloves
5 chiles de arbol (dried in a package)
½ t. kosher salt
1 t. apple cider vinegar
¼ c. water

Wrap the tomatoes and garlic cloves loosely in foil, making sure to seal the foil so the veggies will steam.  Set them on a comal (or black skillet) over low heat for about 20 minutes.  About every 5 minutes unseal the foil and turn the veggies as they begin to blacken on the bottom; reseal the foil.  After about 15 or so minutes set the chiles on top of the tomatoes so they can steam and soften a bit.  You don’t want them to get black so don’t let them come into direct contact with the pan.  Once everything has softened a bit, take them off the stove.  Cut off the ends of the chiles and shake out the seeds.  Put all the ingredients into a blender, including any juice that might have been created from the tomatoes.  It's not necessary to peel the tomatoes.  Add salt, vinegar and water and barely blend until all ingredients are well blended.  Refrigerate until ready to eat and store in the refrigerator for about 2 weeks.