There's a lot of things you can do with Girl Scout cookies (besides hoarding them): Thin Mints are great in cupcakes and minty popcorn. Samoas can be chopped and thrown into a walnut baklava. Do-si-dos, I dunno ... ferret food?
The Girl Scouts website has dozens of these recipes, organized by each cookie in a clickable drop-down format. There is Sunday Sin Cake and Raspberry Lemonades™ Bread Pudding. But salsa, there is not. Not that putting Girl Scout cookies on a shrimp taco is necessarily a bad idea, just a random one. So random, we're writing about it right now.
Because this is Tucson, and there are people like Maria Mazon taking Mexican food to uncharted lands of sugary splendor. She came up with the cookie salsa idea a few years back as a way to use up the extra boxes she had sitting around.
Maria was kind enough to invite us into the kitchen at her campus-area taqueria Boca, where she makes a dozen different salsas every day. (The Girl Scout salsas are available for a limited time.) There were gasps, there were cookies going into blenders, and there were plenty of tortilla chips to soak it all up.
For an undiluted view, we brought along our This is Tucson Super Taster®, Samantha Munsey. She does not have a perfect palate and has never been caught fondling the persimmons in the supermarket. In her words, she's a "Girl Scout cookie enthusiast, but also a fan of salsa."
This is what she thought ...
Fresh tomato Thin Mint salsa
Samantha was a little perplexed by this one.
Ingredients: Thin Mints, raw tomatoes, chipotle peppers, garlic powder and vegetable oil
When this Mexican chocolate salsa hit the blender, Sam noted that it "kinda looks like a milkshake." Her words: "You definitely taste the Thin Mint at the end, but in the beginning it kinda tastes almost basil-y, like i'm eating a pizza." She gives it a "solid 6" on the Girl Scout cookie salsa rating scale™.
Chile Mango salsa with Savannah Smiles
From the look on her face, this was Samantha's favorite.
Ingredients: Savannah Smiles cookies, dried chile morita, Indian mango puree, garlic powder, oregano, sesame oil, apple cider and Maggi Jugo seasoning sauce
Savannah Smiles are a lemony sugar cookie, which comes out in the salsa. "This one's really good," Samantha says. "I taste zero Girl Scout cookie in it, which I think is a good sign, because it's just really creamy and really smoky. ... I can see how she says the lemon brightens it up." Maria recommends putting the chile mango salsa on a nice piece of fish.
Habanero cilantro salsa with Samoas
Samantha thought this was the hottest salsa of them all.
Ingredients: Samoas cookies, dried habanero peppers, fresh cilantro, Maggi Jugo seasoning sauce and vegetable oil
Maria recommends this coconut flavored salsa for chicken dishes, or maybe topping veggies like a grilled cauliflower. There's a lot of heat to it, to balance out the sweetness of the Samoas. Sam agrees: "That's like, hot," she said after taking her first bite. "This is the Hot Cheeto effect, where you eat it if really fast all at once, the fire doesn't kick in. So if you're gonna get this one, my suggestion would be to keep eating it constantly."
