After coming back from a holiday in the USA and Canada, I became a larger fan of Mexican cuisine. On our way to the Grand Canyon we found this family Mexican restaurant that had really good (and absolutely filling) dishes. Of course for starters we had guacamole, and it was beautiful. So tasty, had a nice hint of lime, and coriander but not overbearing and letting the avocado shine. So when I came back to Australia I though what they hey, let’s try making it. I found this recipe on Good Food by Neil Perry that looked nice and fresh but I made some variations to it below.
Ingredients
1/2 small red onion
3 jalapeno chillies, seeds removed
1/2 bunch coriander, leaves only,
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
3 ripe avocados
juice of 2 limes
8 cherry tomatoes, roughly chopped
corn chips, to serve
Method
1. Finely chop the onion, chillies and coriander leaves.
2. Place in a mortar with a generous amount of sea salt and pound with a pestle until you have a rough paste.
3. Peel, stone and halve the avocados and add to the mortar, pounding until they start to mash.
4. Add the lime juice and a good grind of pepper and fold through.
5. Add the cherry tomatoes and fold through gently. (I didn’t)
Note: If the mortar is an attractive granite one, serve the guacamole straight out of that, with a bowl of corn chips.
Impressions
I actually didn’t have any jalapeño chillies so instead I used red chillies but I think I used the small type which are more on the mouth burning hot kind. Luckily I used only one very tiny chilli with the seeds out so it wasn’t too bad. I didn’t add the tomatoes either because I thought it might be nice to try it held back and simple.
I found the recipe to be decent, not anywhere to the level of the ones I’ve found on holiday but I think it was also because I used too much coriander! It asks for half a bunch, which I did use but it was so overbearing that I had to add another avocado to the mix to balance it out. I’d probably only use a a 1/8 cup at first and keep adding a bit more to your liking. It still wasn’t how I wanted it in the end because I ran out of avocados to mix in, haha, but it tasted pretty good with corn chips (and beer). I think it was also because the avocados I purchased weren’t ripe yet, as they were still a tad hard when extracting them from the skin and had very minimal flavour.
If you’re looking for a guacamole recipe with a slight twist and zing, I think this is it. For something more authentic, I think it’s best to keep looking.
ohdenny 