Here’s another use for the chili sauce (see previous post for Chili Sauce recipe) — basting your salmon filets!  Kinda Genius, I know, but we can’t let this great stuff go to waste!

So simple, this is all you need:

salmon filet

chili sauce

Coat the filet with chili sauce, good salt and freshly ground pepper.  Place into a pre-heated 350 degree oven and switch to broil.  Broil 5-7 minutes for until flesh flakes easily and cooked to your preference.

While preheating your oven, prepare the relish.

1 cup pineapple, diced

1 mango, diced

1/3 red onion, minced

1/3 red pepper

1 jalapeno pepper (for more heat) or 1/2 Poblano pepper (for less heat), diced

juice of lime

1 tsp. Himalayan salt

drizzle of olive oil

Combine all relish ingredients in a small bowl.  Stir gently to combine.

Serve with relish over salmon and give yourself a nice pat on the back!  See, this cooking thing isn’t so hard!

Can I just tell you how crazy good these are?  Good enough that when we have them, my husband says “why do we not eat this more often?”  So, so good!

Let’s start with the salsa so the flavors can come together while we do the rest.

Mango Salsa:

1 ripe mango, peeled, diced

1 ripe avocado, diced

1/2 cup minced red onion

1 jalapeno, minced (more or less according to your heat preference)

1/3 red pepper diced fine

1/2 cup fresh tomato, diced

juice of 1 lime (or 2 if they are stingy with the juice)

1 pinch of good salt (Himalayan pink salt or Celtic salt)

2 TBSP chopped cilantro (optional – you know if you like cilantro or not!!)

Place all salsa ingredients into a bowl, stir gently to combine.  Taste for seasonings.  STOP!  I know how good it is!  Save it for the meal, snitchers!  😉

Now, for the chili sauce.  Don’t leave this out.  It brings this meal up several notches and you can use the chili sauce in a great number of other dishes for great umami.  (Umami is the 5th flavor center.  If you hit all the flavor notes of:  sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami, you tend to be MORE satisfied with LESS!)

You will need a bag of dried Poblano peppers, called chile ancho.  They look like this:

Place a large non-stick skillet on low-medium heat.  Place as many as you can easily fit onto a single layer on the pan’s surface.  You are only wanting them to soften slightly so they are workable.  (They are pretty stiff and unyielding right out of the bag!)  Let the peppers heat until you begin to smell the oils releasing their flavor.  Some slight blistering may occur.  Flip the peppers to get both sides.  When they are pliable, remove from the pan using tongs.  Allow to cool just enough to hold (or use a kitchen towel to hold) while you remove the stems.  They will just pull right out.  Now, place the de-stemmed peppers into a blender or food processor.  Add 1/2 cup of freshly-squeezed orange or mandarin juice to the blender.  Drizzle in 2-3 TBSPs of olive oil, 2-3 cloves of garlic and 1 tsp. of good salt.  You want to turn this into a paste so you will need more liquid.  I add hot water, 1/2 cup at a time, until it turns into a soft paste.  Now, pour and scoop the entire contents of the blender back into the skillet.  Cook over low-medium heat to dry and concentrate the flavors.  It won’t need long, maybe 5-7 minutes.  Remove from heat and store in a glass jar.  Excess will store in refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.  And a side note here, if you put this on a chip to try – it will be bitter.  It’s really not delicious by itself.  It’s ah-mazing in conjunction with a little sweetness or with a protein (like an omelet with chili sauce and cheddar cheese!)