Proper Guacamole
Avocado, lime, onion, chilli, coriander and salt, crushed in a bowl rather than blended. Ten minutes and no cooking.
Nutrition Info (per serving)
- 180
- Calories
- 2g
- Protein
- 16g
- Fat
- 10g
- Carbs
Ingredients
- 3 ripe avocados
- 1 small white onion
- 1 or 2 serrano or jalapeño chillies
- Large bunch coriander
- 2 limes
- 1 tomato
- 1 tsp flaky salt
Instructions
- 1Finely dice the onion and rinse it under cold water for a few seconds, then pat dry. This washes off the sulphur compounds that make raw onion harsh and lingering.
- 2Deseed the chillies if you want less heat and chop them very finely. Chop the coriander, stalks included — the stalks carry more flavour than the leaves.
- 3Halve the tomato, scoop out and discard the watery seeds, and dice the flesh.
- 4Halve and stone the avocados and scoop the flesh into a wide bowl.
- 5Add the salt and the juice of one lime and crush with a fork or the back of a spoon, leaving it deliberately lumpy. Guacamole should have pieces of avocado in it; a food processor turns it into a smooth green paste with a completely different mouthfeel.
- 6Fold in the onion, chilli, coriander and tomato.
- 7Taste and adjust with the second lime and more salt. Avocado is bland and absorbs a surprising amount of both — under-seasoning is the most common fault.
- 8Serve within the hour, with the surface pressed flat and covered directly with cling film if it has to wait.
Guacamole has six ingredients and no cooking, which means every decision shows. Most of what goes wrong is one of three things.
Do not blend it
A food processor breaks every cell and gives you a smooth, slightly gluey purée. The texture that makes guacamole worth eating comes from chunks of avocado held loosely together by crushed ones.
A fork, or a molcajete if you have one, is the right tool. Stop while it still looks under-mixed.
Season more than feels right
Avocado is high in fat and very low in anything assertive. It mutes salt and acid, so a quantity of lime and salt that would ruin most dishes is roughly correct here.
Taste after mixing, then add more. If it tastes flat and slightly greasy, it needs salt. If it tastes heavy, it needs lime.
Rinse the onion
Raw white onion contains volatile sulphur compounds that give it a harsh bite and an aftertaste that dominates everything around it. A few seconds under cold running water removes most of them while leaving the crunch and the sweetness.
It is a five-second step that noticeably improves any dish with raw onion in it.
The stone does not stop browning
The widely repeated trick of burying the avocado stone in the bowl does nothing, other than protect the small patch of guacamole directly underneath it from air.
Browning is enzymatic oxidation, and the only things that slow it are acid and the absence of oxygen. Lime juice does the first. Pressing cling film flat onto the surface, with no air gap, does the second. Together they will keep it green for several hours in the fridge.
Choosing avocados
Ripe means it yields to gentle pressure in your palm — not your fingertips, which bruise it. The small stem cap at the top should flick off easily and be green underneath; brown means overripe.
Hass avocados, the small bumpy dark ones, have a higher fat content and creamier flesh than the large smooth green varieties, and they make better guacamole.
Nutrition
Around 180 calories a serving from six, almost all of it from monounsaturated fat. Avocados carry more potassium per gram than bananas, along with a lot of folate, vitamin K and fibre.
Tomato is genuinely optional and some purists leave it out. If you include it, removing the watery seeds keeps the guacamole from going loose within twenty minutes.
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