Dip into something fresh

Daily Press (Newport News, Va.) (MCT) - With the deftness of years of practice, Johanna Hahn chops tomatoes into an even dice. She repeats the process with each ingredient before sweeping them all into a clay bowl to demonstrate her award-winning fresh salsa, Tropical Cucumber Tomato Salsa. Seamlessly, in an uninterrupted motion, she has the cutting board in the sink and her hands washed.

The finished salsa has an attractive medley of colors, distinct but blended, drawing primarily from the tomato, mango and cilantro. The taste is super-fresh and light with just a residual tart tang from added chili peppers. It's a great way to use up garden produce, says Hahn, who concocted her original entry for the Corona and Corona Light Fiesta de Flavor contest in August. Roberto Santibanez, former culinary director of New York City's Rosa Mexicano restaurants judged it the best from entries across the country.

"It's not so good without the straight-from-the-garden cucumbers and tomatoes _ particularly the tomatoes. And the peppers don't have quite the same bite," she frets. For this version, she used Mexican-grown tomatoes and English cucumbers, which are less watery. She notes that you can use the diced tomatoes in a can, but they must be drained. Though it can all be whirled up in a food processor, Hahn recommends the more time-consuming hand-chopping for texture and appearance. "The onions, in particular, tend to get bitter if you process them," she warns.

Her children, Violet, 14, and Camelia, 12, love the salsa _ the mango gives it just a little sweetness _ as does their friend from Puerto Rico, who likens it to the island's sofrito specialty.

Hahn's directions advise that it can be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a week. "It will never last though," she says. "Unless you're out of tortilla chips." This was her second batch of the week.

Hahn, 52, a senior extension agent for the Virginia Co-operative Extension service, specializing in family financial management, is happy her recipe won, but has no plans to market it.

She notes that Trader Joe's grocery store carries a delicious fresh salsa, though it doesn't have fruit in it. "You just can't compare it to the stuff in jars. They're two different animals," she says.

A friend from Texas, knowing Hahn likes to try new recipes, suggested she enter. A veteran of recipe contests, she already had a salsa recipe in a folder on the computer, including a version with mango in it. She makes it several different ways, sometimes with zucchini, other times with frozen pineapple. If she can't find fresh mango, she'll substitute frozen chunks.

Hahn, whose college major was in home economics, only has a handful of classic cookbooks; otherwise she'll scour the Internet for recipes, consulting Web sites of the major manufacturers, such as Kraft and Kellogg's, or checking the e-letter from Land o' Lakes. She also likes to watch The Food Network. Currently Hahn has another entry in, for barbecued ribs, in a winery sponsored contest _ she's made the top 10 and is waiting to hear if she'll be one of the three finalists flown to Napa, Calif., to prepare the dish. "That would be great," she says, even if she doesn't snag the $2,000 top prize.

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Technology stumped another recent attempt, this one for Mario Batali, that required a two-minute video of grilling; the video went overtime and she didn't have the equipment to edit it. Undeterred, she plans to try again next year.

Hahn traveled extensively as a child, thanks to an English mother and an airline pilot father. That also made her open to trying new foods. She grew up sampling British cheeses, such as Caerphilly, curries from India and Japanese sushi. "We thought it was normal," she says. Her family still travels extensively. She and her husband, Bill, a trained pastry chef and bakery manager, spent three weeks in China with their children this summer.

After trips to Australia and England, it was their first non-English-speaking travel venture. She's hoping to expand her prize-winning trip to Mexico for two to include the children. "That's their education," she says.

She caught the food bug early. "Since I was a child, my sister and I would make up recipes and create cookbooks in composition notebooks. It was so much fun," she says, regretting that she hadn't kept any of them.

In middle school she knew that her future lay in home economics and she pursued a degree in order to teach. She quickly learned that teaching children was not for her and switched to the extension service. "I took it to adults, who want to learn and try new things," she says. She has been with the Virginia extension service since 1986.

The salsa is fat-free and healthy. "It sure beats onion dip," she says cheerfully.

TROPICAL CUCUMBER TOMATO SALSA

1 large cucumber, peeled and seeded

1 small onion, sliced and quartered

2 cloves garlic

1 cup fresh mango chunks

Ľ cup fresh cilantro

2 jalapeno or serrano chili peppers, seeded and chopped roughly

Juice of 1 lime

3 to 4 fresh medium-sized tomatoes, seeded and chopped in large chunks

1 dash hot sauce or 61/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon sea salt

˝ teaspoon ground black pepper

You may chop first eight ingredients by hand or place in food processor and pulse about 12 times until the cucumbers, mango, and onions are diced. Don't over-process. Leave it chunky so everyone knows your salsa is homemade. Taste and season with hot sauce, salt and pepper.

Yield: Makes 3 cups.

Serve with tortilla chips, pita chips or toasted French baguettes. Store in an airtight container for up to one week in the refrigerator.

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WIN THAT RECIPE CONTEST

Johanna Hahn, a Newport News, Va., resident and a 14-year veteran of cooking contests, has won her share of prizes over the years.

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Her most recent win, in the Corona Fiesta de Flavor salsa contest, netted her a three-day trip for two to Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda Resort, Riviera Maya, in Mexico.

In the past she's won sums ranging from $50 to $1,000, a label with her recipe on a commercial spaghetti sauce, as well as the December page in a Patrick Henry Mall calendar contest for her pot roast. She passes along these tips for being successful in recipe contests:

Read the rules and follow the instructions

Make sure you qualify (for example, food professionals may be restricted)

Be creative

Everybody loves chocolate (i.e., don't enter a fruit cake if someone else is offering chocolate chips)

Think a little outside the box; Johanna Hahn cites using a really spicy spaghetti sauce in one contest requiring the basic sauce; and in a canned vegetable contest she put a twist on her entry by selecting sweet potatoes and making an apple and pork chop casserole

Be willing to make substitutions in tried-and-true recipes

It's not necessary to invent a recipe from scratch; if you already have a great chili recipe and you're entering a contest sponsored, for example, by Hunt's, then use their product in your existing recipe.

Be true to the dish; if you're making butter cookies, use butter (not margarine)

Hahn enters around a dozen contests a year. She learns about them in a variety of ways, from friends, online and the Food Network. She doesn't pay to enter contests, but occasionally when they're product-centered they require sending proof of purchase of a particular ingredient.

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© 2008, Daily Press (Newport News, Va.).