Cachumber! Gesundheit!

No, that didn’t really happen…no one sneezed in the tomato, onion, and cilantro relish.

I made this dish to complement the rest of the big Indian meal I cooked last week mostly because of the colour, but also because I figured that if anything was bland, this would add enough flavour to make you forget about it. I was right on both counts.

Actually, it was perfect on its own. I didn’t have any naan, but even a spoonful of the soothing raita and a spoonful of this relish (basically salsa) went perfectly together. I would also just serve it as salsa with tortilla chips or even tacos, but it would go well with more traditional pappadum, chapati, or naan. What doesn’t go well with naan?

Ingredients
4 tomatoes, diced (I bought four organic roma tomatoes for flavour. It’s not tomato season, after all, so if you buy field tomatoes they will taste like water and starch and nothing else. The romas didn’t fare much better, but just don’t use canned. The acidity will mess up the whole dish). Oh! This was the first time I used my brother’s new set of knives and chopping tomatoes has actually never been easier. Usually I swear because of under-sharpened knives, but these were so great that chopping was actually fun. I know I have a twisted version of ‘fun’, but if you like making tomato flowers like I do…

1 large onion, diced

1/2 cup chopped cilantro (this is what makes it salsa-y, and it’s also what will save the dish if you use sub-par tomatoes. When you buy the cilantro, make sure it has an aroma. If it doesn’t smell like anything, it won’t taste like anything)

1 1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup lemon juice (this is what will make the dish tart and acidic. It’s also what will overwhelm other mildly-spiced dishes, so if you want a less acid to go with something plain, skimp on the lemon)

1 tsp cayenne (or more to taste)

1 tsp cumin seeds

Instructions
Besides the chopping of the tomatoes, onions and cilantro, this is a pretty painless recipe. That is, unless you don’t have a juicer, a mortar and pestle or a coffee grinder. I had a whole lot of fun roasting and chopping the cumin seeds…in the end it didn’t matter though, because it’s not a cooked dish. As long as they’re roasted and crushed slightly it’ll be fine. Here’s what happened:

To roast the cumin seeds (and you need to roast them. If you use unroasted cumin seeds you’re shooting yourself in the foot flavour-wise), simply toss them into a skillet that’s set on medium heat, and let them cook, stirring occasionally, until they’re slightly darker in colour, and they release a smell – about 5 minutes. Then transfer them to a coffee grinder of mortar and pestle and grind them. I didn’t have either of these things, so mine got transferred to a cutting board and my brother’s new knives got whipped out again. Cumin kind of went everywhere…I could have also transfered them to a plastic/paper bag, or tightly-sealed aluminum foil, and pounded them with something heavy and flat, which would have worked better, but then they don’t all come out of the bag, and aluminum never seems to work out for me. So I figured the cutting board was simplest, and I’d just dice them up. Nope. Not so much.

I think it was still fine, though. Enough stayed on the cutting board that I could add almost the right amount to the chopped up tomatoes and onion in a large bowl. Then everything else got added (cilantro, salt, cayenne) and I went to work on juicing some lemons. Again, no juicer, and I didn’t feel like getting my dry, already-acidic hands into the lemon itself to encourage those juices out. So I used again my brother’s knives. Yet again, a bad decision. I ended up poking myself with the incredibly sharp knives a whole lot. It cut right through the lemon and straight into my hand. Just scratches, mind you, not the Niagara Falls of knife accidents, but it was completely counter-productive since I had to use my hands in the end to get the rest of the juice out and now I had cuts in my hands. Acid + cuts = a lot of pain. Simple kitchen math. Up there with basic fire safety, like not spilling hot oil into open elements….but that was to come later with my duck confit…