Guacamole

Although I have lived in Texas, among several other states, Texas never really stuck with me. My wife, on the other hand, self-identifies as a Texan, even though it's been nearly a decade since she's lived there. I don't mean to say that she believes Texas is somehow a better state than all the others, indeed could be some sort of country all to itself. Mostly, though, she is the expert on TexMex food, and I am not. I'm not even sure that it's written like that. It's probably Tex Mex, or maybe Tex-Mex. Texmex? Something. Tex/Mex. Tex and/or Mex.

Anyways.

This recipe is hers. And it's not really a recipe. Guacamole is more of a collection of good ingredients that you bring together shortly before devouring it with crunchy chips or as an addition to, for example, a tasty burrito. It's simplicity itself to make, and simplicity itself to modify to your liking. But, and I'm serious about this: do not add mayonnaise. Honestly. You don't need it, it's foolishness, and you'll make people angry. Serious people, who are serious about guacamole. Or, at the very least, my wife will shake her head slowly and think just a little bit less of you. And we don't want that.

A typical guacamole starts off with a collection of fruits, herbs, onions, and some garlic salt.

The chicken salt and pepper shaker are completely unnecessary, but do liven up the place. The next thing to do is to take a jalapeño chile pepper and remove the inner membrane, where most of the heat is. Or don't if you want it to be hotter. If you do remove it, there are a number of methods, from some clever knife work to simply using a sharp spoon of some type or another. Grapefruit spoon, melon baller, prison shiv: whatever.

Next, chop everything but the avocado and lime,, but the lime into sections, and measure out your garlic salt. This is most of your mise en place, which is French for "put in place" and is the secret to a lot of easy cooking. It works really well because you have all of your prep work done before you are combining or, in other recipes, cooking things. Prepping before hand means that, when you're knee-deep in the cooking of something, you don't suddenly have to stop to chop an onion, bring tears to your eyes, and be completely unable to see that you've burned your duck. Or whatever it is you're cooking. Cooking in an orderly manner makes life in the kitchen simple and relatively disaster free.

Next: the avocado. In the center of the avocado is a pit. To remove the pit, you slide your knife into the avocado and cut it in half, so that you have two tall sections of avocado. Twist in opposite directions, as if… oh, goodness, many of you may not know what a Rubik's Cube is. Sigh. Hold each half in each hand, and turn one hand towards you and the other away from you. The pit will stay with one half and not the other. To remove the pit from the avocado, take your chef's knife and thwack it into the pit as if you were hitting it with a hammer, except closer to the handle of the blade, like so:

If you are concerned about your aim, place a dish towel between the avocado and your hand. It's not terribly difficult to do that step, but I know people are sometimes nervous about knives.

Next, twist the knife and the other half of the avocado just as you did with the two halves of the avocado. At this point, one of two things should happen: either the pit will come out, attached to your knife, or the knife will slip out of the pit. If the former, move to the next step. If the latter, you were too timid with the avocado and need to try again, preferably with more force this time. Be careful, but not frightened.

Now you have to remove the pit from your knife. Well, you don't have to, but it will make using the knife more awkward and dangerous. You could abandon the knife, I suppose, but really, that seems a bit wasteful. Pit removal is simple. Hold the knife as you would if you were chopping something. If you don't use what's called a pinch grip on the knife, the put your index finger and thumb on the blunt end of the knife blade, with the other three fingers holding the handle. Like so:

Now slide those fingers down towards the pit, which will pop the pit off the knife. You should not need to come near the edge of the knife blade before the pit falls off into your waiting hand.

Remove the avocado from its shell, using any method you prefer. A spoon is really easy, but if you like, you can score the avocado "meat" with your knife in a grid pattern, then flip the skin inside out. Or get creative. There are plenty of easy ways, and you don't need the avocado to look like anything particular when it's out. Just don't get the skin mixed up with the tasty bit of the fruit. After that, combine everything into a bowl and mash together with a fork, pastry mixer, or similar. You want the end product to look something like:

This is for eating immediately. If you can't eat it immediately, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. And when I write, "cover," I mean that the plastic wrap should touch the guacamole in such a way that air does not come in contact with any of the guacamole. This is not good for long term storage, but should last a couple of hours until guests arrive. Still, if you can swing it, just make it in front of them. You can prep everything except the avocado before they arrive, the do the rest in the traditional manner, right in front of them. It's very impressive and ensures that the avocado does not turn brown.

Guacamole

Ingredients 1 small tomato, chopped

3 small stalks green onion, chopped

3 avocados, spooned

1 lime, cut into thirds

A bunch if cilantro

1/2 jalapeño seeded and diced

1 tsp garlic salt

Directions

Combine tomato, green onion, avocados, cilantro, jalapeño, and garlic salt into a bowl.

Squeeze lime over everyhthing.

Mix with a handheld pastry mixer or a fork.

Serve and eat immediately.