The One Fruit Your Pork Carnitas Seriously Need, According To Rick Martinez

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Rick Martinez, the chef who authored the bestselling cookbook "Mi Cocina: Recipes and Rapture from My Kitchen in Mexico," is at it again. His new tome, "Salsa Daddy: Dip Your Way into Mexican Cooking," will be available on Amazon on April 29. While many grocery store salsas are the tomato-based kind (here's how we ranked a number of popular red salsa brands) and others are tomatillo-based salsas verdes, salsa can actually be made out of whatever ingredients you have. 

Martinez' cookbook includes over 70 recipes for different kinds of salsas. Not just vegetable ones, but nutty ones — he's even got a recipe for peanut salsa – and fruity ones, too. One fruit salsa made with peaches is something he says is perfect for carnitas.

"Pork loves fruit," said Martinez, "but in particular, peaches." His salsa also includes pecans, and as he told The Takeout, the three Ps (pork, peaches, and pecans) "are just such a great combination." The other elements of this salsa include orange juice, lime juice, and habaneros. This last-named ingredient is a pepper known for its heat, but it also has a sweet, fruity flavor of its own. While plain carnitas have what Martinez called a "salt and pepper simplicity," he said of his peach salsa, "You didn't need any added flavor; you were getting it all from that."

So how did Rick Martinez come up with the idea of combining peaches and pecans in a salsa? "That was kind of an experiment, and I wanted to do it as an homage to my dad and growing up in Texas," he told us. Martinez related how his father had an orchard with pecan and peach trees. "In the summer, fresh peaches were a big deal for us," he reminisced. "And then in the fall, we would harvest the pecans." His mother made good use of the latter, making pralines and pecan pies. Looking back on this bounty, Martinez thought, "Okay, I'm going to make a pecan peach salsa. This is either going to be really delicious or horrible."

Needless to say, the former turned out to be true, since the peach-pecan recipe made it into his cookbook. "It was so good," he said. "It's one of my favorite recipes in the book." To make it, you start with charring the peaches (which are better quickly grilled than smoked), onion, garlic, and habanero on the stovetop or under the broiler, then toast and cool the pecans. All the ingredients go into the blender with lime juice, orange juice, and salt, and the salsa is finished off with chopped basil.

Not only did Martinez enjoy the flavor of this condiment, which he calls salsa Tejana, but said, "Immediately after I tasted it, I thought this would go so well with carnitas." He was correct on this score as well, since once he tried the combination, he had one word to describe it: "heaven."