Guacamole
You’ve got guacamole for dips, guac for toppings, guac for kids, guac for adults. Spicy, chunky, garlicy, with or without cilantro, etc. You can make it how mom made it, how the food truck makes it, or how you had it on that one trip to SoCal. Different people like it different ways and I’d say you should make it however you love it. I’ll also say you should make it this way because it’s amazing!
This recipe was inspired from reading through the recent issue of Milk Street Magazine; the venture Christopher Kimball started up after leaving America’s Test Kitchen. I’m enjoying the articles and recipes as they’re more editorial and worldly than ATK’s straight up in-the-kitchen scientific methods (which are also awesome). This guac was shown to Milk Street editor J.M. Hirsch by, The Art of Mexican Cooking author, Diana Kennedy during his forty-eight hour stay at her home in central Mexico.
What makes this guacamole a little unique is that it uses no lime juice. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t miss it at all. What’s not terrible unique, but an under-utilized technique in my experience, is mashing the onions, cilantro, chilis, and salt together before mixing in the chunky avocados. My recommendation is to do the mashing with a mortise and pestle. Alternately, you could use a food processor, or a fork and some elbow grease. Whatever you’ve got around to pulverize the onions will do!
Why is this the best? Honestly, this was the best guac I’ve had in a while and it had a lot to do with delicious ripe [wiki title=”Hass_avocado”]Haas avocados[/wiki]. You’ve seen the advertisements and I’m all onboard the hype train (funny because I’m writing this on Amtrak right now). For whatever reason, Haas avocados have been m.i.a. for a while around here and it hasn’t been fun. Without the lime in this recipe, the Haas gets top billing with a push from the chilis and sea salt. You can adjust the proportions in the recipe how you’d like, this is pretty middle-road.
Add chopped onions, chilis, cilantro and salt to your bowl or mortise to mash in to a paste.
Incorporate three avocados in to the onion paste you just mashed. Keep things thick and chunky. Taste for salt. Add reserved cilantro just before serving.
Guacamole for Avocado Lovers
This guac is your authentic central Mexican preparation as made by, The Art of Mexican Cooking author, Diana Kennedy. Without lime juice in this guacamole, the chilis and sea salt accentuate the ripe, fatty Haas avocados.
Ingredients
- 3 ripe Hass avocados
- 2 jalapeños or red chilis finely chopped
- 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro 1/4 reserved
- 1/4 cup white onion finely chopped
- 2 Roma tomatoes roughly chopped.
Instructions
- Combine chilis with onion, 3/4 of the cilantro, and sea salt. Mash in mortis and pestle (or food processor) until they form a loose paste. Add tomatoes so they’re well incorporated but not too broken down.
- Transfer onion paste in to a clean bowl and add the avocados. Incorporate well with a fork and taste for salt. Add the reserved cilantro and incorporate just before serving.
Notes
- Be sure to taste test your chilis before you add them to any recipe as the heat can vary from one to another. I suggest you leave the seeds.
Hi Anthony. Since I have been making sauce and meatballs for 40 years I’ll have to stick to my so called recipe. Yours look ja and sounds delicious too! Thank you for calling it “sauce” not gravy😊
Rita Scalzo Osvai🙋🏻♀️
I was very close to calling it gravy! 😁