Guacamole
Guacamole is a spicy Mexican (or Tex-Mex) paste made from crushed avocado and various seasonings, usually including onions, peppers, garlic and tomatoes.
Recipe
The ingredients and quantities of this recipe are tuned to the tastes of one contributor; you should experiment with it. (Especially note that it has got rather a lot of lime, and you might want to add peppers, chillis or tabasco.)
- 2 very ripe avocados
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- Juice of 1 1/2 limes
- 1 small onion, diced very small
- 1 small tomato, diced very small
- 2 tbsp chopped cilantro (coriander)
- Salt to taste
Put everything except the avocados into a medium-sized mixing bowl. Halve the avocados and scoop the flesh into the bowl. Using a large fork (or a blender), mash the avocados and combine with all the other ingredients. Taste the mixture and add anything you think necessary (be aware that the flavours, especially the lime, will soften a little by the time it is served). Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour to allow the flavours to blend. When it is removed from the refrigerator, there may be some brown on the top - scrape it off.
This alternative recipe is somewhat simpler, but gives an extremely tasty Guacamole which is great with tortilla chips or vegetables, or can be used in Enchiladas, etc. It also avoids messing about with messy tomatoes, nor coriander, which some people do not like the taste of. I have tried many Guacamole recipes over the years, this is both the simplest, and in my opinion, the tastiest I know.
- 3 whole avocados, ripe but not over-ripe
- 1 lime
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 or 3 whole red chillies
- Salt
Prepare avocados by halving and removing the stone (the simplest way to do this is to hold the avocado in the palm of your hand and strike the stone squarely and firmly with a chef's knife - the knife will then pull the stone out easily. If it doesn't come out easily, the avocado isn't ripe enough). Keep one half avocado back, deskin and blend the rest using a hand held food processor, add the juice of the lime, finely chop chillies and garlic, add and blend a bit longer. Add generous salt to taste. Finally roughly chop avocado half kept back and add to paste to give chunky texture. Resulting dip will keep for several days in a fridge, shouldn't brown too much if covered (the lime juice will act as an antioxidant as well as giving a nice flavour), but in general will be found to disappear very rapidly by enthusiastic consumers!
Tip: An old Mexican trick to avoid or reduce the brown oxidized layer on the top is to put the whole avocado pit back into the guacamole once it's prepared. One pit for every two or three avocados is usually enough. Never cut the pit in pieces; that will make the guacamole bitter. Covering the top with plastic wrap so no air is in contact with the sauce also helps.