By Dana Jacobi
Asian Salsa
Most people would never think of combining ingredients from assorted cultures. This “fusion cooking” can be laughable when it goes to excess, like pizza topped with duck and pineapple, or captivating when it succeeds, like French vichyssoise with a Mexican jalapeno kick. Still, fusion cooking has created a growing acceptance of new ingredients and unexpected flavor combinations.
French nouvelle cuisine, which mixed Japanese ingredients with French cooking techniques, was popular in the 1970s and ’80s and is usually credited with starting this panethnic culinary revolution. For me, it began much earlier.
During the 1950s, as Hispanic influences gained momentum in New York City, what I then thought of as Spanish restaurants began appearing on the upper West Side. They offered arroz con pollo (chicken stewed with rice), tostones (fried plantains) and other Cuban and Puerto Rican favorites, but also egg foo yong and other Cantonese Chinese dishes. A neon sign in the window of these shops, Comidas Criollas y Chinas, signaled a menu with this peculiar mix of ethnicities.
Eventually I learned that the roots of this unexpected combination originated far back, when Caribbean locals grew to like dishes eaten by the Chinese workers who settled on their islands. When they emigrated to the U.S. mainland, Cubans and Puerto Ricans brought along their long-standing taste for Chinese food.
Inevitably, eating home-style Hispanic dishes and Chinese food at these restaurants led to the idea of mingling the flavors from the two different cultures. In my student crowd, which included other precocious cooks, we feasted from both sides of the menu, shared dishes all around, then played with ideas inspired by these new sensations.
This Asian salsa was one result. It demonstrates how deliciously a typical fresh salsa is transformed by trading scallions for onions, then adding ginger and Chinese black bean sauce.
Ingredients
6 medium plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1-2 serrano chili, seeded and minced
3 scallions, green and white parts, chopped
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
2-3 teaspoons Chinese black bean with garlic sauce, or to taste.
Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Let stand 15 minutes so flavors can meld.
For best flavor and texture, this salsa should be served immediately or within one hour.
-Jacobi is the author of “Joy for Soy” and creates recipes for the American Institute for Cancer Research for publication in the Town Crier.
