Pico de Gallo

Pico de gallo (Spanish for 'rooster's beak') is the bright, crunchy salsa cruda that anchors a lot of Mexican plates: finely diced ripe tomato, white onion, fresh chilli, a heap of chopped coriander, a hard squeeze of lime, and salt. The key to a good one is uniform, small dice — about 5mm — so every spoonful carries every flavour, plus a brief rest of about ten minutes for the salt to draw out the tomato juices and marry everything. Don't make it too far ahead: the onion sharpens unpleasantly and the tomato turns soggy. Tomatoes should be deseeded if particularly watery.