What do you mean guacamole isn't a paste?

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So, after doing a nice Google search on authentic guacamole, I came across this, this, and this. NONE of which are paste. In fact, the first one made me laugh:

“Put the blender away, far away. Real guacamole should never be pureed to mush. It should be chunky.”

I mean, how much simpler can it be? It’s like salad. You wouldn’t mash the lettuce into a pulp would you? I sure wouldn’t! Maybe you like your salad a morhphous blob. I like to see all the ingredients of mine…just saying.

So, a little more about me. I’m VERY INTERESTED in authentic dishes from all over the world. I mean, SERIOUSLY authentic. How they make it, with their ingredients, and their techniques. I’m not sure if everyone has this interesting, but I have always been excited by learning new, traditional dishes. So, I always try to keep my guac as authentic as I possibly can. I do have one small tweak though….

That being said, authentic guac does have some ingredients that are ground together with a molcajete. Tomatoes, onions and serrano chiles are usually ground with the spices as the base of the guac. Then you add the avocado and stir it together. Top with some lime juice, stir again, and voila! Sadly, I do not have one of these. I think I have overstepped my bounds on kitchen gadgets. Especially since we are downsizing.

So, this is how *I* make guac. I start out with chopping some tomatoes and onions. This is about 2 cups of tomatoes and 1 cup of onions.

Then I half the avocados and remove the pits. These didn’t remove some nice, so I can’t show you how I remove them. Essentially, I take the butt of the knit and, using a sharp quick motion, hit the center of the pit with it so it sticks in the pit. Then with a slight twist of the knife, you should easily be able to remove the pit. These… disintegrated. The last time I had issues getting a pit out, I wound up stabbing myself. DO NOT do this. Then I carefully dice the avocado in the shell, like this:

Then using spoon, scoop the meat out of the shell like this:

And voila, diced avocado! And here is my little tweak. I add about 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise to the guac. No, it’s not authentic, but it adds that bit of creaminess that most look for without pureeing the whole mess. Alternatively, you could mash a few of the avocado cubes to create that creaminess, too.

I stir to combine, then add the juice of two limes, 1 teaspoon of chipotle chili powder, and 1 teaspoon of cumin. Stir again, then add salt and pepper to taste. Now, at Agave Azul they had sea salt in their guac. They were nice, yummy explosions of salt in your mouth periodically. I couldn’t find my sea salt to be able to do this.

And, as usual, I forgot to take a picture of the finished guac. We essentially scarfed food down that day. We had the braised beef, the guac, and some corn tortillas. It was YUM-MY!

Guacamole