While I genuinely feel very sorry for the avocado haters, given the incredible wonderfulness they miss on a daily basis, ultimately, who cares. I mean, seriously: more for me. And while I am all over simply cutting an avocado in half, sprinkling on a little salt, a dash of Tapatio, and inhaling said avocado, few things in this world bring me such joy as a good batch of Guacamole.
I guess this is part of my Texas/Tex-Mex roots. I’ve been a fanatic for guacamole since, well, ever. Over the years I have played around with various ways of making it until finally, a couple of years ago, I landed on the perfect combination. You need a few important staples in your cabinet and one very important ‘piece of machinery’ but if you, like me, go crazy for guacamole, do yourself a favor: get what is needed, follow the steps below and you will end up with the Best. Guacamole. Ever.
Most important (along with fresh, quality avocados, of course) is a molcajete, a rustic mortar and pestle type tool made from volcanic rock. I generally try to refrain from suggesting equipment on which you need to spend your hard earned money. But like cooking in a cast iron skillet or making salad in a cherry wood salad bowl, making guacamole in a seasoned molcajete ramps the taste up ten fold. Believe me, this is worth the investment. Williams Sonoma, surprisingly, has a reasonably priced molcajete that, unlike others, is not smooth. A smooth molcajete is pointless. Find one that is rough, such as this one:
BTW, like the above mentioned cast iron skillet and wooden salad bowl, never ever ever use soap with your molcajete. Use course sea salt, a little water if need be, and some elbow grease.
Once you have your molcajete (or if you are slumming it in a bowl or food processor) here is what you do:
Throw a handful of cumin seeds and some course sea salt into your molcajete, at least a teaspoon of cumin seeds and 2 teaspoons of salt.
Grind them up very fine. Then add half an onion chopped, 5 or 6 cloves of garlic, and one Jalepeno or Serrano pepper, sliced (or one of each), with at least some of the seeds. The seeds give the heat.
Mash this up as well, until you have a very good paste. (If you like chunky guacamole, you can always add chunks of onion and/or tomato later. Chunks are not what you need here.)
Then add your avocados, at least 6, halved and scooped out. Then add the juice of a lemon and/or lime.
Now attack again. About halfway through this process, I usually switch to a fork, which makes it easier to get the hidden pieces of avocado that remain. Taste as you go. If you made it too spicy for you, add more avocado. If you need more fire, add a few more seeds. More flavor? Add garlic and salt. Follow the above, though, and it will be pretty damn amazing.
That’s it. I made one of these for the Super Bowl recently and it was pretty much gone before I finished it. So I made another. Which tends to happen every time I make guacamole this way. Which now is the only way.
So, so good.
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Are you a fan of guacamole? A hater? Ever tried a molcajete? Let us know, click the comments link below!