One thing I love to do on my travels is to pick up a local cookbook. A few years ago I went to Santa Fe and found a little book by the Santa Fe School of Cooking, called Salsas and Tacos. Inside are interesting combinations of each with ingredients I wouldn't have thought to put together. But that's what I love about this little book, and local cookbooks in general. Sometimes there are surprising ingredients that are common to the locale, but may be a bit different than what you're used to. Inside this book are many great salsa combos with ingredients like anasazi beans, nopales and epazote, things that aren't common to the midwest, but flavors I couldn't wait to experiment with. I took a couple of unusual ingredients from the corn and anasazi bean salsa and used it to come up with my version of corn and bean salsa, below.
CORN & BLACK BEAN SALSA
Serves 6
1 cup frozen corn (or 2 ears fresh corn in season)
1/2 cup diced red onion
1 cup cubed cucumber, peeled and seeded
1 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 jalapeno, seeded, de-ribbed and finely diced
3/4 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
juice of 1 lime
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 Tbsp chopped cilantro
salt & black pepper to taste
1/2 avocado, cubed
1. Place corn, onion, cucumber, tomatoes, garlic and jalapeno in a large glass bowl. Stir well. Add oil, vinegar, lime, cumin and cilantro. Stir to mix all ingredients well. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in cubed avocado gently. Serve with tortilla chips.