This is the salsa I make most. The fruit is tomatillo, a round, green fruit enclosed in a papery husk that before I met Roberto I treated as an oddity to be ogled but never purchased. It is crisp and unassumingly tart until it’s roasted, when its texture turns pulpy and its simple acidity becomes complex, like that of cooked plums. The chile is chipotle, which is smoky, fiery, and barely sweet, though to Roberto’s chagrin, I cheat and buy chipotle powder instead of toasting whole dried chiles and pulverizing them myself. (In a pinch, I’ll use canned chipotles in adobo along with little of their liquid.)

Messing around with the ingredients doesn’t hurt. Substitute roasted tomatoes for half the tomatillos. Quadruple the garlic, but roast it first, without oil, until both sides are charred and the cloves are tender but not quite mushy. Swap out the chipotle powder for 4 or 5 dried chiles de árbol (if you can find the real thing, from Mexico) that you toast in a dry pan over medium-low heat until they turn brown and brittle and smell nutty, then pound with the salt and garlic in this recipe.

Spoon it on practically anything.