If you could eat guacamole for breakfast, lunch and dinner, raise your hand. Personally, I think guacamole is pretty hard to mess up as long as you use fresh ingredients, and you aren’t afraid to use a little salt. I also think a knife, a potato masher and a bowl is as high-tech as you should get. No food processing, no micro-plane, no pressing. Just add crispy chips, tacos, or … you name it. And no double-dipping.

Guacamole

recipe (in this case, ratio of ingredients and method) by Stephanie Kunstle

Note: If you’ve ever used fresh chiles, you’ll know that the heat in each chile varies, so start conservatively and you’ll need to taste as you go… throw in more jalapeños later on if you need to! You want a nice heat, but too much will just mask all the great fresh flavors. Also, choose tomatoes that aren’t watery. I’ve listed a few suggestions below. The fresh tomato flavor is what you are going for, so get the best you can find.

Makes around 3-4 cups of guacamole.

Ingredients:

• 8 perfectly ripe avocados (small-ish to medium in size)
• juice of 3 limes, plus one slice into quarters for garnish
• 2 to 4 jalapeños, deveined and seeded, minced
• 1/4 of a large red onion, minced
• 5-6 “strawberry” tomatoes, 1-2 Romas, or 1 medium vine ripened tomato, chopped very, very fine
• two large handfuls of cilantro leaves (most of the stems stripped away), chopped fine
• good sea salt

Preparation:

1. Halve the avocados, remove seeds, and scoop into a large bowl.
2. Juice the limes and immediately pour over the avocados (besides being delicious, this will also keep them from turning an ugly brown), and mash together.
3. Slice the tops/stems off of the jalapeños, slice lengthwise in half, then cut out the veins (white/light green internal part of the chile that holds the seeds) and seeds and discard. Slice the halves lengthwise into thin strips, then mince those strips. Add to avocados.
4. Mince red onion, chop the tomatoes and cilantro very fine, and add to the avocados and mix all together.
5. Season with salt, starting with a couple of hefty pinches, mixing well, and adding more as needed until it tastes absolutely delicious.
6. Serve immediately or cover surface with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving.