Even the stand-in slipped away early on New Year's morning, for a week's winter getaway in Mexico. The trip was well fed and very restful, but coming home is, as usual, a bit bruising and bedraggling. So, as a starter, here is a post I wrote in anticipation of the journey and failed to finish in the New Year bustle. It dwells on one of Mexico's basic condiments, guacamole.
Clearing the fridge of its assorted microbial cultures before leaving, I came upon a dreadful mistake of a purchase, a tub of guacamole two months old. The gunk had been bland and industrial to begin with, and in the American manner it was loaded with additives. The sludge still looked horribly inedible, and into the bin it went.
The Pastanjauhajat, two Finnish food bloggers, were writing about guacamole only recently, so here is a recipe a great deal better than anything from a jar. It comes from a trip to Santa Fe a few years ago, just before Christmas. Ah! The reddish adobe houses of that pretty little town lay resting under the snow, and every single one was strung with Christmas lights made to look like red chile ristras. I read afterwards that real ristras, strings of dried chillies, hang from walls and porches all over New Mexico. There was chile even in the Christmas sweets... and for dessert, dreamily light sopaipillas to dip in honey.
I know that Taikinapoika and I disagree strongly about what makes the ideal guacamole. My brother's version is very different, and delicious all the same. I am against tomato in this dish. In New Mexico it is the custom to mess tomatoes into guacamole only in summer, when they actually taste of something. Huntley Dent's excellent book Feast of Santa Fe has more on the local traditions. At Mama Mexico on Manhattan's Upper West Side, which we sometimes favour ("go early or go deaf" - the place is usually packed to bursting and an extremely loud mariachi band rages there), this same guacamole is made on request as a show at your table.
A couple of technical points about avocados. I prefer the ordinary dark green, wrinkly kind. The football-sized pale green avocados you sometimes find in the shops have tasted merely watery on the couple of occasions I tried them. I press the avocado gently, and a ripe one gives a little. There is no point making guacamole from an unripe avocado, because the texture is wrong and the taste awful. It should be soft enough that you can mash the inside with a spoon without straining 😉 Since often only hard avocados are to be had, I put them in a plastic bag with a tomato to ripen for a day or two. The tomato courts the avocado by way of ethylene (which, as far as I understand, is a gaseous hormone that signals growth...). If, on the other hand, the avocado shows brown streaks or patches when you cut it open, it is already overripe and bruised. Buying avocados is Russian roulette with small stakes, so it pays to buy and ripen a couple of spares at a time.
Recipe card
Guacamole
You will need
| 1 | ripe avocado |
| 1/4-1 | lime, juiced; at a pinch the same amount of lemon juice (but don't let yourself get into such a pinch) |
| 1 small | garlic clove, crushed, the green sprout in the middle removed |
| 1/2-1 tbsp | olive oil |
| a pinch | of salt and black pepper |
| fresh coriander | |
| a little green chilli | |
| (tomato, very finely diced) |
Method
- Halve the alligator pear, tap the stone with the blade of a chef's knife and twist it out.
- Mash the flesh in a bowl with one or two spoons into a creamy paste. If you need a food processor, the fruit is too unripe and the dish is ruined - sorry.
- Add the other ingredients.
- Adjust the acidity to your liking by adding the lime juice a little at a time and tasting as you go.
- Serve with tortilla chips or on top of tacos.
Avocado turns an ugly mud colour as it oxidises. I assume that ascorbic acid prevents this, which is why guacamole is usually bathed in citrus juice. If you make it ahead, add the citrus at once and, to be safe, press cling film tightly onto the surface of the guacamole to cut down the oxidation. We don't have this problem, because in our house guacamole is eaten devoutly and at once, with a fight over the last dollops.
First published on 8 January 2006.
