Not My Abuelo's Pebre

You've seen those shirts that say "touch my butt and buy me pizza", right? Well, I need one like that, except mine would say "make me pebre and leave me alone". There's just something about that fresh coriander salsa I grew up eating that has me constantly craving it, constantly thinking about it, even dreaming about it.
I. Fucking. Love. Pebre.

Seriously. I'm salivating.

I make and eat so much of it and post about it on my instagram so often that I've gotten a lot of requests for a recipe, so I figured what better subject for my first post than pebre? I'm going to do my best to be coherent, but I'm not making any promises--I basically add everything to taste, and the recipe was never written down for me. My grandma taught my mum how to make it, who in turn showed me, who then completely bastardised it because I'm all about maximum results with minimum effort. So join me as I reach into the depths of my brain, right back to high school cooking classes, and attempt to remember how to write a recipe. Sorry if it turns out terribly, I was probably drawing flowers in my margins.

NOT MY ABUELO'S PEBRE (because we make ours very differently)

Get your shit together:

5 tomatoes finely diced
5 spring onions (shallot, green onion, whatever you call it where you're from. The long green ones) finely sliced
1 large bunch OR two small bunches of fresh coriander (cilantro) finely chopped
juice of 1 lemon
2-3 teaspoons of garlic paste (or 2-3 cloves of crushed garlic if you're not lazy like me)
drizzle of oil (something neutral tasting. I use sunflower)
Tabasco sauce
sriracha
salt to taste


Method:

In a mixing bowl (I like to use a glass one because I like admiring my work from all angles) combine tomatoes, spring onions, and coriander. Make sure you chop your coriander all the way to the end of the stems because the stems have the best flavour. You can use the roots if you like (my dad does), but I don't like the texture of them in the pebre.
Add oil, garlic, juice of half a lemon, a generous shake of Tabasco sauce, and a decent squeeze of sriracha (I told you. I warned you. I'm Very Bad at this). Mix thoroughly, then crack your salt all over, and mix again.

Got a rice cracker? Put some pebre on it.

At this point you can give the pebre a taste. If this is your first time trying it, this step may not be any help, because you aren't sure what it's supposed to taste like. If I were there with you I would volunteer to taste it, but I'm not, so you're gonna have to trust yourself. If it's not acidic enough for your liking, add some of the leftover lemon. Its up to you if you add more hot sauce or not (though some would argue that as you're cooking it, everything is up to you), but keep in mind that as you let the pebre sit, the flavours will intensify. I've made these mistakes so you don't have to. You're welcome.
Once you're happy with the taste, let it sit in the fridge for an hour or so. This is just so the tomato can soak up the flavours of everything else, and that intensifying we talked about earlier can happen. Then you can shove it directly into your mouth parts with a spoon (my preferred method), or put it on burgers, pasta, anything! The pebre should keep in a jar or container in the fridge for about a week, though with me around it never lasts that long.
For ideas as to what to eat your pebre with, check out the hashtag #putsomepebreonit on instagram, and feel free to add that tag to your own posts.

Speaking of Instagram, If you use this or any of my future/other recipes, I'd love to see how you went! You can tag me in them @rokkers, and use the tag #plantbasedjase.

Note: The beautiful thing about pebre is that no one region of Chile makes it the same way. Some add fresh chilli, dried spices, and balsamic vinegar. Some people use boiling water and omit tomato. This is just the way I was brought up eating and making it, and every way is good. It's all pebre, and its all delicious.