I went over to my friend Mike’s place one day and he was cooking up some ranchero sauce. Think “thick and chunky salsa,” or look it up. It’s good stuff. Mike was kind enough to tell me how he makes it, and I’ve made four or five batches since then. I’ve modified his recipe, of course, and am still playing with it.

Before you get started, understand that this is not a quick thing to make. It’s going to take you three or four hours of cooking, plus prep and cleanup time.

Equipment you’ll need:

• A 12-quart stock pot. Don’t use one of those enameled stock pots. You’ll be scraping the bottom and you’re likely to start scraping off the enamel. I use my aluminum brew pot.
• A potato masher. (Yes, really)
• A steel spatula for scraping the bottom of the stock pot.
• An oven mitt or other glove to cover your hand while you’re scraping. It gets hot in that pot. Optionally, get a long-handled spatula, but I’ve had better luck with a short-handled one.
• Canning jars. I would suggest pint-sized, but you can go larger or smaller if you like. The ingredients below will make between one and two gallons of the stuff (see below for details).
• Recommended: An outdoor propane cooker, sometimes called a cajun cooker. You can cook this stuff indoors if you want, but be aware that your house will smell strongly of peppers for days afterwards if you do. In addition, your typical electric stove won’t generate as much heat as the propane cooker or gas stove. This will take a lot longer on an electric stove.
• Optional: A smoker if you want to smoke the veggies before cooking them.
• A bag of corn chips, for sampling the sauce as it’s cooking.

The first couple of times I made the ranchero sauce, I didn’t smoke the veggies and it turned out just fine. But one day I was smoking a brisket and thought I’d throw the peppers on the smoker for a bit before putting them into the sauce. If you like smoked salsa, it’s definitely worth the trouble.

The ingredients list below is necessarily vague. The number of tomatoes you use will depend on their size. The number of jalapeños will also depend on size and how spicy you want the sauce. I like things with a bit of a bite, so I don’t scrimp on the peppers.

It’s also hard to say how much sauce the ingredients will make. A lot depends on how long you let it boil down. If you like your ranchero sauce kind of runny, this will make about two gallons. Debra and I like ours a lot less runny. The batch I made today made about five quarts.

Ingredients:

• 12 to 18 large tomatoes. Get the biggest tomatoes you can find at the supermarket. I used 18 today because they were smaller than the gigantic tomatoes I’ve found there before.
• A dozen or so jalapeño peppers, again depending on size and how hot you want the stuff. I’ve been known to line the entire bottom of my stock pot with them, but Debra doesn’t like the sauce quite that hot. You can use other peppers if you want. I made one batch with a mixture of Ancho chilis, jalapeños, and serranos that turned out just great.
• Two bunches of cilantro. More or less, depending on your taste.
• Two big yellow onions. Really big. Use sweet onions (vidalia or 1015) or red onions if you like. I prefer the stronger yellow onions.
• Two heads of garlic. No, not just two cloves. Again, to taste. Debra and I both love the taste of garlic, so we go a little strong on it. Even three heads of garlic isn’t too much for a batch of ranchero sauce.
• Salt to taste. I’d suggest starting with two tablespoons. If you’re sensitive to salt, start with one.
• A small amount (one or two tablespoons) of vegetable oil.

Clean the cilantro and chop it. Include the stems. How fine you chop it is up to you.

Peel the garlic. I know, peeling garlic isn’t fun. Well, peeling garlic the traditional way isn’t fun. But there’s a much faster way. You can peel a whole head of garlic in about 10 seconds. Just watch this video.

If you only want to peel a few cloves, throw the cloves in a glass jar, attach the lid, and shake it a few times. Peeled garlic. No muss, no fuss. I showed that to a friend of mine who’s been working in restaurants for over 20 years, and he was just amazed. I think people would use fresh garlic more often if they knew that peeling it didn’t have to be such a pain in the neck.

Oh, before you do anything with the tomatoes, be sure to peel the labels off of them. For some silly reason, every tomato gets a sticker on it. Drives me crazy, especially when the adhesive is too sticky. One of these days I’ll just give up on the supermarket tomatoes and buy them from the local farmer’s market.

Smoking the veggies

If you’re not going to smoke the veggies, you can skip this step.

First you have to decide just how much smoke flavor you want. That will determine how many of the veggies you smoke. The first time I did it, I just smoked the peppers. Now, I smoke everything.

I cut the tomatoes in half before I smoke them, and I quarter the onions. The peppers and garlic cloves (after they’re peeled) go on whole. I’ve experimented with quartering the tomatoes, but that’s kind of messy. I’ve also sliced the peppers in half the long way before putting them on the grill.

The peppers, onions, and tomatoes go directly onto the grill. For the garlic cloves, I use a disposable grill screen or a small cooking basket.  If you quarter the tomatoes rather than halve them, you might consider putting them on a screen, too.

Close the lid and smoke for an hour or hour and a half. You want to smoke at a pretty low temperature, certainly not hotter than 250 degrees, and preferably under 200. The idea here is to smoke the veggies, not cook them. I start the fire and throw on just one or two pieces of mesquite, keeping the temperature well under 200 degrees for an hour or so.

Cooking

Put a tablespoon of vegetable oil in the stock pot and coat the bottom. Then, put the peppers in to the pot. Put the tomatoes on top of the peppers. If you didn’t smoke the tomatoes, just put them into the pot whole. No need to cut them up.

Put the lid on the stock pot and put the pot on the burner. Turn the heat up a little bit, but not too high. The idea here is to build up heat inside the pot, but you don’t want to char the peppers too much and make them stick to the bottom of the pot.

Let this cook for a good 30 minutes, at least, and possibly up to an hour. This will soften the peppers and the tomato skins will start to split. Don’t be in a hurry here. Let the thing cook.

While the peppers and tomatoes are cooking, chop up the onions and garlic. Dice the onions, but don’t make the pieces too small; they’re going to cook for a while, and you don’t want them to cook totally away. Chunk size is a matter of taste, so I’ll leave it to your discretion. The garlic, too, is a matter of taste. Some people like big monster chunks of garlic. I prefer smaller pieces.

When the tomatoes have all split open and they’re getting really soft, take the potato masher and mush them all up. Really smash things, pressing the potato masher to the bottom of the pot and turning it to help split up the peppers. It’s going to be hot in that pot, so wear an oven mitt or other protection on your hand. And be careful when mashing things. If you press too hard near the edge you’re likely to dump the pot over. Balance things with your other hand on one of the pot handles.

After the first mashing, you’ll still have some big clumps of tomato and large pieces of pepper. Put the lid back on the pot and let it cook some more. Adjust the heat to give it a low boil. Cook for another 30 minutes, mashing occasionally.

You’ll also want to scrape the bottom of the pot with your steel spatula. That will loosen the charred bits that stick to the bottom. You can pull the charred bits out of the sauce if you want, but it’s fine to leave them in.

After many mashings, when you’ve broken up all the big tomato clumps and the pepper pieces are the size you want them, add the onions, garlic, and cilantro. Stir the additions in and put the top back on for 15 minutes or so. Then, remove the top and adjust the heat so that the sauce is at a low boil. Add the salt at this time.

Now you’re just boiling away the excess water. If you don’t like charred bits in your sauce, you’ll need to stir frequently, especially as more water boils off. If you don’t mind the charred bits, scrape the bottom of the pot periodically–every 10 minutes or so. Otherwise you’ll get large chunks of charred stuff. Small pieces are okay. Big charred chunks are not.

This is where you need to break out the corn chips. Spoon some of the sauce into a bowl and let it cool for a bit. Check the consistency. Pull out a corn chip, dip some of the sauce, and taste it. If you think it needs more salt, add some. Repeat until the sauce reaches the consistency that you desire.

Take the pot inside and begin filling the canning jars while the sauce is still hot, and seal the tops. I don’t do the boil bath with the jars, so I let them cool overnight and then put them in the refrigerator. Once sealed, the jars will keep in the ‘fridge for many months. But if you open a jar be sure to finish it off in a week or two. Otherwise it will start to mold. That’s why I don’t recommend jars larger than a pint. One can finish off a pint of the ranchero sauce in a week, two at the outside. But a quart lasts a long time unless you’re a real salsa fanatic.

If you cook up a batch, let me know how it turns out. I’d also be interested in any changes you make to the ingredients or the process.

Happy cooking.