Salsa Guero

This salsa, like all others, begins with charring the skin of the chiles, then placing them in a sack -- paper or plastic -- until they are cool enough to handle to remove the skin.
 
A couple of tomatoes are charred to loosen their skin, except when she has a pot of boiling water,  then Doña Martha may drop the tomatoes into the water for a few seconds as on this day when she was making Caldo de Res.
 
When the chiles and tomatoes are ready, she begins by grinding three cloves of garlic in the molcajete.  When she began to add the chiles, she realized that she had more than could be ground in her small one, so she moved everything into her large restaurant size molcajete.
 
When the chiles were well mashed, she ground in the tomatoes and then stirred in the salt.
 
Doña Martha uses this basic recipe to make a variety of table salsas with different chiles.  Sometimes she adds finely minced onion.  And sometimes a small amount of avocado.  Adding a little avocado does not turn the salsa into guacamole; it just adds another layer of flavor.
 
If tomatillos are to be used, she will use her blender rather than a molcajete.  See Salsa Casera.