Guacamole

Table of contents for A Little Home Cookin’

In my Good-For-You Fast Food post, I mentioned my awesome guacamole. I may be biased, but I’ve also heard good things from other people. We had a potluck at work and I brought in pico de gallo and guacamole. The comments on the guacamole that I remember were “This is the best guacamole I’ve ever had,” (by two different people) and, the kicker, “I don’t even like guacamole and that is great!” So here’s my recipe. It’s unbelievably simple, which makes me laugh when people think it’s the best stuff in the world. What’s really amusing is that the skill level in making this is pretty much nil. If you can select good avocados, you will have good guacamole. I’ve used this same recipe to turn out a pretty shoddy excuse for guacamole once or twice when the ingredients weren’t top notch. So pick good avocados and you too can laugh when people rave over one of the simplest recipes in the world. Good ripe avocados will yield to soft pressure when you hold them in the palm of your hand, but won’t be mushy. If you could easily crush it in your hand, it’s beyond ripe and won’t taste very good.

Scott’s Wonder Guacamole
3 ripe avocados
1/2 small white onion, chopped
1 tomato, seeded and chopped
1 fresh green chili like a serrano or jalapeno, finely chopped (remove seeds if you aren’t keen on spicy)
3 cloves garlic (more or less based on your taste buds), chopped
Cilantro, to taste
Juice of 1 lime
Salt, to taste

Cut the avocados in half and scoop out the flesh onto a large plate. Mash the avocado with a fork to get it to the chunkiness you desire. After tossing the onion, tomato, chili, garlic, and cilantro in the chopper (or hand chop them to the size you’d like as I do), fold them into the avocado mush with half of the lime juice and the salt. Place the whole mess into a storage container and squeeze the rest of the lime juice onto the top. This will protect the top from turning brown as avocado is wont to do when exposed to air. Let it all meld for at least an hour, stir in the lime juice that’s sitting on top, and chow down. This stuff doesn’t last long in my house. Serve it with cucumber slices instead of tortilla chips for a low-carb treat or put it over your protein of choice.

Oh yes, and putting the avocado seed into the bowl with the guacamole does absolutely jack to keep it from turning brown. This myth comes from someone’s realization that if you cut an avocado in half and let it sit, the part under the seed doesn’t turn brown like the rest does. Well, logic will tell you that is because the part under the seed isn’t exposed to the air and therefore cannot undergo oxidation, not that the seed contains some magical anti-oxidation property that transfers through any medium that it touches.

Previous in series Next in series

If you enjoyed this post, share it on StumbleUpon or Health Ranker (or both!)