Pico De Gallo

Recently, we bought some Carr’s table water biscuits because they were on sale. Some of you may be wondering (I did myself too): why are they called “table water biscuit”?

According to Wikipedia, water biscuits are “baked using only flour and water, without shortening or other fats usually used in biscuit production”; hence, the hard and dry texture. Apparently, this method was used back in the days to keep the biscuits fresh on long ship voyages; they were also known as “ship biscuits”, and were consumed mainly by the sailors. Carr’s markets their biscuits as “table water biscuits”, referring to the water quality used in their biscuits is the same as the water served at the table.

Anyway, this stuff is expensive in Malaysia, and here in UK it costs less than £2 for a packet; serve them with some cheese and wine, and you can enjoy your own “atas” experience. But cheese is not high up on my favorite food list, so I thought, wouldn’t it be great idea to eat the biscuits with some salsa sauce, as how you would with tortilla chips!

What I ended up making was actually “pico de gallo”, which shares the same basic ingredients as salsa sauce, minus the blending and cooking.

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SERVINGS: Enough to eat with 10 pieces of biscuits

PREPARATION TIME: 15 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

• (1) Tomato – cut into small dices
• (1) Shallots – chop finely
• (2) Finger Chilies – chop finely (Jalapeno would be a more authentic ingredient to use)
• (2) cloves of Garlic – chop finely
• (3) stalks of Cilantro (a.k.a Coriander/Chinese Parsley) – chop finely
• (1/2) a Lime – remove seed
• Sugar
• Salt

STEPS:

1. Add the tomatoes, shallots, chilies, garlic and cilantro into a bowl and mix them well.
2. Squeeze the lime into the mix, and then sprinkle some sugar and salt for taste.
3. If you have time, chill the “pico de gallo” in the fridge for 30 min for the flavors to develop. Otherwise, you can serve it immediately too.

Bon appetit!