Tuesday, September 2, 2008

And for my next trick

When it comes to parties, I have a couple of tricks up my sleeve. Ok, two... I have two tricks up my sleeve. One is Kathy Frontino's Amazing Potato Salad, which probably shouldn't count as my trick, given it's name. The other trick is guacamole. It's not very tricky, I know. It's only got a few things in it. It's easy enough to buy vacuum packed guac at Trader Joe's or wherever you find yourself, but if you make it from scratch you can keep it chunky, which I love, and impresses people with your kitchen prowess. Or something.

I made some on Monday when we hosted an impromptu Roof Deck Appreciation/Labor Day Party. There are many many recipes and techniques out there, but this is how I do it. You need two avocados, a tomato, half an onion, cilantro, a lime, salt and garlic powder. Sometimes I mince fresh garlic instead of using powder, and sometimes I add diced jalapeno, but I didn't have one today so we had mild, cool, creamy guacamole as a foil to spicy salsa. It worked.


Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit. My favorite way to remove the fruit, at least for this application (in which I will be mashing it all together) is to cut it into a grid:

Then you just squeeeeze and the meat comes smooshing out. (Isn't cooking fun?) I usually squeeze some lime juice onto the avocado to inhibit browning while I construct the rest of the dip. Now add at least half (sometimes I use a whole tomato) of a diced tomato, half a diced onion, and half a bunch of cilantro (well rinsed, dried, chopped to your preferred level of fine-ness), salt, the juice of half a lime, and a few shakes of garlic powder.


Then proceed to mash the whole mess with a fork. Taste. Probably needs more lime juice? Yeah, mine did.

Eat with tortilla chips, after taking blurry photos to post on your blog.

Guacamole

2 ripe avocados, preferably Hass
one tomato, diced
1/2 onion, diced (any kind will do, red also looks pretty)
1/2 - 1 lime, juice only
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
garlic powder to taste
salt to taste

Cut the avocados in half, remove pit, cut with crosshatch pattern and squeeze out fruit. In a bowl combine all ingredients and mash to your desired consistency. Taste. Enjoy.

6 comments:

  1. Oh, that does look good! It's hard to find jalapenos here in AU, so I always have to go with plain red chillis. Still good, but not really authentic.

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  2. nom nom nom! Guacamole is one of my top 10 fave foods. Yours looks good, even if it is blurry.

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  3. This was a bowl of pure Awesome.
    Thanks for posting all this, great blog!

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  4. great blog! i love guacamole, and i found a similar recipe i've been using for awhile. i could seriously eat guac every day.

    but i do have a question...what do you do with leftover guac? if i put it in the fridge, it turns a gross brown/green color. do you leave it out at room temp???

    thanks!

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  5. Hi Pink, thanks for stopping by! Alas I must tell you that... well, guac doesn't keep. I don't make more than I (or usually my guests) can eat in one go. You can try to store it by pressing plastic wrap right down onto the surface before putting it in the fridge, but avocados brown super fast if they're exposed to air at all, so you're fighting an uphill battle. You can still eat it if it's brown, it just doesn't look as pretty.

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  6. I'm mildly surprised you go for the dicing still in the skin. While I know this handy li'l trick I get so much pleasure cutting up the avocado on the cutting board (they're just so darn...cuttable!)that I don't bother. But that's just me...

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