A Hungry Bear

I’ve made guacamole on AHB before, and while I still stick to my original recipe of no-recipe-at-all, I’ve been making it more often recently and found a few new tricks that make it even better. So just in case you don’t have your own non-recipe down pat, let’s review this one.

Grocery list: ripe avocado (when you press it, it should be slightly soft; if you need to ripen one, just put it in a paper bag and fold over the top for a day or so), tomato, cilantro, jalapeno, cumin, salt, lime.

If you plan on having guacamole for several days, I recommend prepping all the ingredients in advance *except* for the avocado. I only like avocado freshly mashed, not even a day old, so that’s why I only make one avocado (about 2-3 servings of guac) at a time. I usually prep all the ingredients first.

Seed and mince the jalapeno. For more detailed instructions on how to do this without making too big of a mess, see my steak fajitas post. Now is the time to finely chop the cilantro, and chop the tomato too.

Once the tomato, cilantro and jalapeno are ready, move on to the avocado. Slice it in half lengthwise.

You probably won’t hear this technique in a knife skills class (or at least not from the knife manufacturer), but use your knife blade like an ax. One fell hatchet-like swoop, to get the knife blade wedged into the avocado pit. You should be able to easily twist the knife handle which will rotate the pit and pop it right out.

Quarter the avocado.

Either peel the avocado skin back from the flesh like you’d peel an orange slice, or if it doesn’t come away easily, use a spoon to scoop out the good stuff. Put all the avocado into a bowl and sprinkle generously with kosher salt. Add about a teaspoon of fresh lime juice (a little less than the juice in a half lime = enough for 1 avocado).

Now it’s just a matter of assembling the guacamole exactly the way you like it. Do you like it really chunky? Then add more tomato. Throw in a tablespoon of cilantro, maybe half the minced jalapeno, and stir it up. The most important part is just tasting it and figuring out what else you want to add more of (if anything). I’ve also started stirring in just a pinch of ground cumin here at the end, to give it another layer of flavor. Save your leftover minced cilantro, jalapeno and tomato, and make another batch tomorrow with another avocado.