Thing Four: The Guacamole
May. 15th, 2012 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badseed1980I'd never made guacamole before I met ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pierceheart. Blame him. Or thank him, if you've had my guacamole. :)
It's one of the things I brag about. It's gotten the approval of at least one friend who never liked guacamole before she had mine, and of another friend who's an excellent cook in his own right...and is of Mexican heritage.
Making guacamole isn't like following a recipe. Oh, sure, I know there are guacamole recipes out there that you could follow to the letter, and I'm sure that many of them would produce a decent guacamole. But that is not my way. My way is all about trusting yourself, following your heart (or your tastebuds), and ignoring things like measurements. It's about using intuition. It's subjective.
The ingredients list is one thing that is set in stone.
* Haas avocados (not the big Florida ones), ripe to the point of luscious softness
* Fresh limes, not shriveled or dried out
* Sweet or red onions, finely diced
* Jalapeño peppers, which should be seeded unless they're extremely mild
* Fresh cilantro, minced. Do not fear the cilantro.
* Fresh garlic, finely minced. The jarred "cheater's garlic" simply isn't good enough here.
* Salt (kosher flake or sea salt for preference)
* Tomatoes, finely chopped. Sometimes I use grape tomatoes, sometimes larger ones whose seeds I remove, since you don't want them adding lots of excess liquid.
How much do you need? As much as you need. I tend to over-buy and over-prep the non-avocado ingredients, just to make sure I have enough.
First, you prep everything but the avocados. This is where I like having a nice little mise en place set up, with everything in little ramekins or prep bowls. It makes life easier. Having it all ready before you even think about taking a knife to an avocado keeps those avocados from getting brown. Once you have your neat, organized mise smiling up at you from the countertop, it's time to turn your attention to the avocados. The alligator pears. The lawyers. (Both are avocat in French.)
Take a sharp chef's knife, and holding the avocado in your non-knife hand, slice it lengthwise through to the pit. When you hit pit, rotate the avocado, keeping the knife against the pit, so that you're slicing the avocado in half lengthwise all around the pit. Put down the knife, and twist the halves of the avocado apart. One will have the pit in it. Take that one in your non-knife hand, and pick up your knife again. Gently tap the blade--not the point!--of the knife into the pit. Twist. The pit should come free, and stick on the knife as you remove it. Chuck the pit. Now, for guacamole, you can just use a spoon to scoop out the flesh of the avocado from its skin. If you wanted to slice or dice it for a salad or something, however, you would now carefully slice it as desired while still in the skin, not cutting through the skin. Then you'd use a large spoon to scoop it out in one fell swoop, so all the slices or cubes came out at once. For guacamole, you don't really need to bother.
Into the bowl with your avocados, as many as you're using. Then, take a potato masher, and start mushing. Stop when you have a creamy mass with some smallish chunks in it. Add in onion and tomato first--those, you can pretty much see how much you want. You don't want to overload it, but you want to make sure every bite will have some. Stir gently. Now's when you need to use your tastebuds. Add garlic, jalapeño, and cilantro. How much? As much as is needed, and no more. As much as tastes right. Halve a lime and squeeze juice into the bowl, and throw in a bit of salt. Err on the side of caution. You can always add more. Stir gently, and taste as you go. When you get it right, it will be like the moment when an alchemist sees that his lead has turned to gold in the alembic.
Don't dive in just yet. No, you want some flavor-melding time. "Oh," you say, "But guacamole goes brown as it sits!" Only in contact with oxygen, my friends. Put the guac into a container with an airtight lid that just contains it without much space left over. Before you put the lid on, take a sheet of plastic wrap, and lay it down directly on top of the surface of the guacamole. Get as much air as possible out from between the guac and the plastic. Then, put the lid on, and stick the guac in the fridge for maybe half an hour or so. Then you can take it out, and serve it with corn chips. I am particularly fond of lime Tostitos with it, because, well, the things are bloody addictive. Any good corn chip will do, though. If you're anti-corn chip, other alternatives are crudités like carrots, celery, jícama, or pepper strips. You can also throw this stuff into burritos or tacos, or on top of chicken, fish, or pretty much anything else you like. If you've made a whole bunch for a party, you might want to keep back half in the fridge with the plastic wrap still on top of it, so it stays fresh. Replenish the supply when necessary.
That's about as close as I can come to telling you how to make The Guacamole. Your trial and error, your tasting and testing, will have to do the rest. Good luck!
pierceheart. Blame him. Or thank him, if you've had my guacamole. :)It's one of the things I brag about. It's gotten the approval of at least one friend who never liked guacamole before she had mine, and of another friend who's an excellent cook in his own right...and is of Mexican heritage.
Making guacamole isn't like following a recipe. Oh, sure, I know there are guacamole recipes out there that you could follow to the letter, and I'm sure that many of them would produce a decent guacamole. But that is not my way. My way is all about trusting yourself, following your heart (or your tastebuds), and ignoring things like measurements. It's about using intuition. It's subjective.
The ingredients list is one thing that is set in stone.
* Haas avocados (not the big Florida ones), ripe to the point of luscious softness
* Fresh limes, not shriveled or dried out
* Sweet or red onions, finely diced
* Jalapeño peppers, which should be seeded unless they're extremely mild
* Fresh cilantro, minced. Do not fear the cilantro.
* Fresh garlic, finely minced. The jarred "cheater's garlic" simply isn't good enough here.
* Salt (kosher flake or sea salt for preference)
* Tomatoes, finely chopped. Sometimes I use grape tomatoes, sometimes larger ones whose seeds I remove, since you don't want them adding lots of excess liquid.
How much do you need? As much as you need. I tend to over-buy and over-prep the non-avocado ingredients, just to make sure I have enough.
First, you prep everything but the avocados. This is where I like having a nice little mise en place set up, with everything in little ramekins or prep bowls. It makes life easier. Having it all ready before you even think about taking a knife to an avocado keeps those avocados from getting brown. Once you have your neat, organized mise smiling up at you from the countertop, it's time to turn your attention to the avocados. The alligator pears. The lawyers. (Both are avocat in French.)
Take a sharp chef's knife, and holding the avocado in your non-knife hand, slice it lengthwise through to the pit. When you hit pit, rotate the avocado, keeping the knife against the pit, so that you're slicing the avocado in half lengthwise all around the pit. Put down the knife, and twist the halves of the avocado apart. One will have the pit in it. Take that one in your non-knife hand, and pick up your knife again. Gently tap the blade--not the point!--of the knife into the pit. Twist. The pit should come free, and stick on the knife as you remove it. Chuck the pit. Now, for guacamole, you can just use a spoon to scoop out the flesh of the avocado from its skin. If you wanted to slice or dice it for a salad or something, however, you would now carefully slice it as desired while still in the skin, not cutting through the skin. Then you'd use a large spoon to scoop it out in one fell swoop, so all the slices or cubes came out at once. For guacamole, you don't really need to bother.
Into the bowl with your avocados, as many as you're using. Then, take a potato masher, and start mushing. Stop when you have a creamy mass with some smallish chunks in it. Add in onion and tomato first--those, you can pretty much see how much you want. You don't want to overload it, but you want to make sure every bite will have some. Stir gently. Now's when you need to use your tastebuds. Add garlic, jalapeño, and cilantro. How much? As much as is needed, and no more. As much as tastes right. Halve a lime and squeeze juice into the bowl, and throw in a bit of salt. Err on the side of caution. You can always add more. Stir gently, and taste as you go. When you get it right, it will be like the moment when an alchemist sees that his lead has turned to gold in the alembic.
Don't dive in just yet. No, you want some flavor-melding time. "Oh," you say, "But guacamole goes brown as it sits!" Only in contact with oxygen, my friends. Put the guac into a container with an airtight lid that just contains it without much space left over. Before you put the lid on, take a sheet of plastic wrap, and lay it down directly on top of the surface of the guacamole. Get as much air as possible out from between the guac and the plastic. Then, put the lid on, and stick the guac in the fridge for maybe half an hour or so. Then you can take it out, and serve it with corn chips. I am particularly fond of lime Tostitos with it, because, well, the things are bloody addictive. Any good corn chip will do, though. If you're anti-corn chip, other alternatives are crudités like carrots, celery, jícama, or pepper strips. You can also throw this stuff into burritos or tacos, or on top of chicken, fish, or pretty much anything else you like. If you've made a whole bunch for a party, you might want to keep back half in the fridge with the plastic wrap still on top of it, so it stays fresh. Replenish the supply when necessary.
That's about as close as I can come to telling you how to make The Guacamole. Your trial and error, your tasting and testing, will have to do the rest. Good luck!
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Date: 2012-05-15 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-05-17 05:50 pm (UTC)seems straight forward method to me, like my ancestors did it.
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