MY GUACAMOLE RECIPE IS LACKING SO HELP ME (you fuckerz!)

To two avocados - I usually add cilantro, lime juice, some white onion, a dash of tabasco, salt, pepper, and sometimes chili powder, red peppers or chopped tomato. It is good but not magical (like I know in my heart that it should be.) What am I missing?

i use nigella lawson's recipe, which is 3 avocados, some lime juice and cilantro, a pinch of salt, a minced green chili, and four chopped scallions (both green & white bits). no tomato! guac is so much better without, which i hadn't realized until i started making it this way.

my variation on my sister's famous recipe:

two ripe avocados
juice of one lime
two tablespoons minced cilantro
one diced tomato (preferably a small and sweet tomato)
diced one half of maui onion (outer layers)
one tablespoon of garlic salt (my sister uses a few full garlic cloves but i'm not huge on it)

I agree with you on that - I tried making some last week with even just one garlic clove, and it was inedibly wrong.

I've always been told not to use anything but the avocado itself and the immediate flavor boosters, salt and lime juice, and to consider chiles or tomatoes "mix ins" rather than part of the guacamole per se. But that was in Texas (I asked at the place that made my favorite guac), where they can get very, very good and fresh avocados without any trouble.

Nothing you're doing sounds wrong, in any case. Are the avocados good? Not "unbad," but downright good?

i hate you all for making me crave this.

i'm glad none of you are heathens who mix cream cheese into their guacamole; i don't know where this foul idea was born, but the world is worse off for it.

They usually seem quite good - nice bit of give and a good bright green on the outside. Maybe I'm just not using enough of something - probably salt. Will try that simple approach next time I think.

I forgot I had Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen in the other room, so:

At Frontera, we carefully chop the tomatoes, serranos, cilantro and garlic (we use roasted garlic for more mellowness) up to a day ahead and mix them with coarsely mashed avocado, rinsed chopped white onion, lime juice and salt just before we serve our guacamole. We use the dark, pebbly-skinned Hass avocados to ensure great texture.

His recipe then goes on to say completely different things because so much of this cookbook is based around trying to reduce Mexican cooking around an analogue of the mothersauces. Anyway, that said:

1 large ripe tomato, cut into 1/8-inch dice.
Fresh serrano chiles to taste (roughly 2 or 3), stemmed and finely chopped. Don't you hate it when cookbook authors say "roughly 2 or 3"? If it's roughly, we know we have the 'or' handy. If we have the 'or,' we know it's "roughly." No one says "exactly 2 or 3." Anyway.
1 garlic clove, peeled and very finely chopped (optional); and this is where he drops the ball from the text up top -- he doesn't mention roasting the garlic, because this part of the recipe is "essential chopped tomato serrano salsa," which uses fresh garlic. I'd follow the spirit, not the letter, and roast that fucker.
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro, plus a little for garnish.
1/2 cup finely diced white onion, rinsed under cold water and shaken to remove excess water (so he says in the verbose procedural text I'm leaving out).
3 large (about 1 1/2 pounds) soft-ripe avocados.
2 to 3 teaspoons fresh lime juice.
Salt, about 1 teaspoon.

Procedural stuff, summed up:

Mix tomato, chiles, garlic, cilantro, and onion together.

Cut the avocados in half, twist the halves to free the pits, pull the halves apart, get the pits out. Scoop out the avocado flesh and place in medium-sized bowl. Mash them with a large fork, potato masher, or your hand (don't use a food processor). [The avocado should still have some lumps, like hectic mashed potatoes.] Stir in the salsa, then taste and season with lime juice and salt.

Avocado
Garlic
lime juice / lemon
salt
pepper
chilli (optional)
tomato (optional)

Never chilli powder! never tobasco! and NEVER sour cream. I haven't tried cilantro (=coriander?) so I don't know.

I mostly use Hass, the roundish black ones

I'm with Tep in terms of the basics. I like tomatos added.

I've *never* had guac with chili poweder, peppers (guacamole should not be hot, what do you think it is? pico de gallo?), garlic or anything like that. and believe me, I have had *a lot* of guac.

I think you are all mentalists.

i make it with marmite

Mmmm marmite

mark u so crazy

my girlfriend puts mayo in her guac. Weird, I know, but she makes pretty much the best guac I've ever tasted.

that is completely and utterly wrong.

Yeah, that's how I'd always seen it made, too, when I was a kid (suburban New England back before there were any ethnic restaurants, much less Mexican restaurants with any amount of confidence). It's why I didn't like guacamole (I hated mayo) until I tried it in New Mexico as a teenager.

Ha, "confidence" -- I meant "competence." What a cool slip.

you have to taste it to believe it. Her guac is better than my mom's, and my mom's recipe is from when we used to live in Texas.

it's just wrong. i wouldn't let it touch my lips.

well there's open-mindedness for you. It went well alongside the cheddar biscuits and rhubarb chutney, cole slaw, mac and cheese, mint juleps and Derby pie we had yesterday.

in somethings I'm an unapologetic purist.

considering we were celebrating the Kentucky Derby in Brooklyn, I didn't care much about "authenticity."

as mentioned above, lemon juice is a good addition

I have never heard of coriander in guac. Eurgh I hate the stuff.

and a non-American should be the authority

the word guacamole comes from the Spanish word for avocado, so I wouldn't necessarily say an American would be the authority.

I mean people from other places giving their contributions to this thread shouldn't be made out to be like, say, Momus on American politics.

Yeah wtf, I was hardly saying "it is verboten to put cilantro in guacamole". What the hell would I know, I dont even like avocado.

The trick is adding a splash of tamari.

the trick is keeping it simple.
my guac is avocado, chopped onion, lime juice.

I tell you, a splash of tamari will improve even your guac!

This is not something I know from my mastery of cooking, for I do not have that at all. It is something that has been handed to me from the gods.

I once had guacamole with chopped jalapeños in it (a homemade one, too!) and it tasted just as glorious as the simpler ones I've had in the past. Hell, if you've got any or all of the following "mix ins" in your guacamole, you're authentic in my book (BTW, I do think I have the right to claim authority here):

diced onion (but not the outermost layers -- the regular part)
chopped jalapeños
chopped cilantro
diced tomatoes (making sure to squeeze the juice out before dicing)

You must always have in your guacamole the lime juice and salt. And I always use the Haas variety of avocados. I'm lucky in that I live in an area where delicious and buttery avocados are in abundance.

Ackage. I'm really, really craving a warmed up corn tortilla with guacamole in the center. It's 12:58 in the morning. Ackage.

Oh yeah, and Sam is SO OTM re: the utter wrongness of mayo in "guacamole". It's as much of a blasphemy of the food as Cincinnati chili is to actual chili. Oh God. I would gag if someone tried to slip me some guacamole with fucking mayonnaise in it, or even anywhere near it. By contrast, I'm a big proponent of pairing up guacamole and sour cream but not mixed together.

for top comedy effect substitute wasabi for avocado but don't admit it

PAPRIKA PAPRIKA PAPRIKA

Jebus, even a recipe thread can be turned into a FITE.
Most confrontation recipe thread EVAH!
I do declare.

I've never actually looked up a recipe for guac, but trial and error brought me to a relatively pure avocado/garlic/lemon juice combo which tastes darn good. I like it when it's still a bit chunky, not oversmooth.

I want nachos now :(

It may be a bit obvious, but I think you are missing moles.

Guacamole's a piece of piss. the nut that i can't crack is SALSA - anyone have a good recipe for it?

Our Mexican au pair makes some pretty bitching guacamole, and keeps it real simple: avocado, lime juice, and salt. She claims that it's all about getting good avocados, which we rarely get here. Her salsa-making skills are completely awesome, so I trust the wisdom of her words.

No, Noodles, I think the chili thread was equally cantankerous. Tampering with regional dishes can bring fury.

I'm strangely pleased that Dee said "fucking".

i think we need lime juice, cilantro, avacodo, garlic and thats it. blend till smooth.

I imagine Tep on Cribs coming into the kitchen and going.. "so this is where the magic happens!"

No, Im right.

I do have a lot of sex in my kitchen.

Maybe that'll help your guacamole!

hstencil wrote:
"the word guacamole comes from the Spanish word for avocado, so I wouldn't necessarily say an American would be the authority."

That didn't sound right considering "guacamole" is a very Aztec-sounding name so I googled:

"We still enjoy this dish today, although its name and ingredients have changed slightly down through the centuries. What the Aztecs called ahuacamolli, we now know as guacamole. According to cookbook author María Dolores Torres Yzábal, the word comes from Náhautl, the language of the ancient Aztecs. It is a composite of two words, ahuacatl (meaning testicle) and molli (indicating something which is mashed or pureed into a sauce)."

Nevermind about the sex in the kitchen.

salsa

one or two big tomatoes
small white onion
juice of a couple limes
salt + pepper
one serrano chile (or two)
big handful of chopped cilantro

maybe a dash of olive oil, if you like
maybe a bit of garlic, if you like

as a southern californian let me say that it warms my heart to see that the texan guacamole recipes aren't so different from mine ... which was a bit of a surprise because i think tex-mex food is abominable.

I recently did a U-Turn on Tex-Mex (mostly because I was eating non-Texan Tex-Mex).

ok i'll admit i've never actually been to texas.

i'm also trying to decide about rancho cooking - y'know, northern cali mexican food. when i went back to visit berkeley after a four years absence i wasn't brave enough to go to mario's la fiesta ... i was worried i'd be disappointed :-(

Yeah, I don't have any experience with the west coast, but my intuition is that Tex-Mex outside of Texas just isn't worth the time. With the exception of one place in Cincinnati, I've only had good Mexican in Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado, and Tex-Mex should be more difficult to "export" since its fusion characteristics make it harder to nail down. (Not to mention, it relies so heavily not only on fresh local ingredients but on a culinary support system which has been in place for generations and doesn't exist elsewhere.)

There are many Central Americans in NorCal which I think flavors the "Mexican" food much differently than in LA/SD.

Vahid, have you ever been to Alambre's in the (now-trendy?) Gaslamp district? I used to go there many many many moons ago with friends of mine from Mexico City who said that it reminded them of home. I still to this day have intense cravings for their pazole.

Mmm. Hungry. My mom uses cumin in her guacamole.

gygax! thanks for the hot tip ... every time i'm in that neighborhood i end up at this punk co-op mexican restaurant by the post office. they have a vegan "chorizo" burrito - it must be the very height of corruption!!

here's the menu:

page 1
page 2

sad to see no more pazole... :-(

my californian friend makes fun of puny Texan avocados. She says they're equivalent to the ones that fall off the truck in California and are left there.

I need to get my grandpa's recipe for hot sauce. the problem is there really isn't a recipe i'm just going to have to carefully watch him make it.