Well yesterday I was made to buy avocados and tortilla chips. The demands were very clear: "Can we have guacamole for dinner?" There were other demands made like "Can we have salad with pomegranate? Can we have Oreos? Can we have Jaffa cakes?" but only some of them were granted, including the guacamole.
We love the stuff, and I am not sure why I have never made it in Sri Lanka given that avocados are so cheap and good and all the ingredients are available. It either is because I don't have the recipe with me (no more excuses now) or due to the lack of chips to dip. A few years ago I had guacamole in Arugam Bay and they served it with papadum which is a brilliant idea (might be best to bake them though instead of frying!).
Preparation time: 30 minutes; Makes a big bowl
Ingredients:
1 | Onion |
2-3 | Garlic cloves |
2.5 cm | Ginger root |
4 | Haas Avocados (about 2 Sri Lankan avocados) |
2 | Limes, juice and grated rind |
4 tbsp | Coriander leaves (cilantro) |
2 tsp | Ground coriander |
2 tsp | Ground cumin |
1 tsp | Chili powder |
2 | Ripe tomatoes, diced |
1/2 tsp | Salt (to taste) |
Method:
So there are two ways to make this. You can either have the chunky variety or the smooth variety. We usually go for chunky.
If you want to go for smooth just put the onion, garlic and ginger into your food processor and pulse. Then put in everything else except the tomatoes and pulse until smooth. Stir in the tomatoes and serve!
You might consider chunky to be a bit more time consuming but you save on cleaning the food processor!
So I first put the avocado in a bowl and smash them up to the size that we like. Then grate my ginger and garlic into the bowl. The onion I dice finely and add that together with all the other ingredients.
You can adjust the spices as you like and I was very tempted to add some finely chopped green chili but I didn't have time. If your tomatoes are watery dice them, let them sit for a few minutes and drain off the water. The tastier your avocados and tomatoes are the better your guacamole will taste.
As you probably all know avocados turn brown very quickly. To keep your guacamole a bit longer you need to stop the surface coming in contact with the air. To do this I take some cling wrap and press it down onto the surface of the mixture making sure to press any air bubbles out. Then to be extra careful I put another layer of cling wrap on top. The guacamole should be chilled before using so pop it back in the fridge until you need it. In my house it never goes back into the fridge (unless we are having visitors) but straight into some warm tummy's!!!
This is half the recipe |