Sibling Cutlery

I’d be hard pressed to come up with a food that looks worse and tastes better than guacamole. I mean, lets be honest here, its green, chunky, and sort of squishy-slimy. Yet it is also wonderfully delicious,  fresh, rich, and a little spicy, and it tastes good on just about everything. In the parlance of today’s youth, it looks like fail, but tastes like win. It’s also pretty hard to make it wrong, and since it’s football season and your tortilla chips are lonely, go make some. Now.

And continuing with last week’s theme of lame/geeky food-related jokes: How many guacs are in a guacamole?

Avocado’s number.

Ingredients. Note that this is another “raid the produce aisle” recipe.

Dice the onion and tomato and set aside.

Dice the chiles very finely in the food processor. Set aside.

Slice the avocados in half, remove the pits, and scoop out the flesh. It’s okay to give a little evil laugh when you think about “scooping out the flesh”.

Pulse the avocado, cilantro, and lime juice together in your food processor until smooth-but-a-little-chunky (that’s a highly technical term).

Transfer the avocado mixture to a serving bowl or, in this case, a rubbermaid container. Dump in the chiles. Then, mix in the tomato and onion a bit at a time until you get to a ratio that looks about right. Finally, season with salt and pepper to your taste. This really is all about how you like it, so keep sampling as you go until it’s perfect.

And with that, you have guacamole. Eat it with some chips. Or get creative and schmeer it on whatever you happen to be eating. It was remarkably successful on scrambled eggs wrapped in fresh tortillas. When you’re done tossing guac about, seal it in an airtight container and refrigerate. To help prevent browning, I placed plastic wrap directly on the surface of the guacamole in the storage container. This actually did seem to help.

Guacamole

Ingredients:

1. 4 avocados
2. 1 med/large yellow onion
3. 1 large tomato
4. 2-3 jalapeno or serrano peppers, stems removed
5. juice of 1 lime
6. 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves
7. salt and pepper, to taste

Dice the tomato and onion and set aside – dice can be small or large depending on desired chunkiness. Finely dice the chiles and set aside. Slice the avocados in half and remove the pits. Scoop the flesh into a food processor (you can also mash the avocado by hand in a molcajete). Add the cilantro and lime juice and pulse until mostly smooth but somewhat chunky. Transfer to a bowl or storage container and mix in chiles, tomato, and onion (you may not use all of the tomato and onion, if they are starting to dominate the mix). Season with salt and pepper to taste. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Makes ~4 cups