My Dad’s Guacamole

Fresh Guacamole

   My father makes the best guacamole on the planet. No, really, it is the best I’ve ever had, and I’ve tried a LOT of guacamole in my lifetime! He doesn’t put a bunch of things in it that take away from the heavenly taste of the avocado. When he makes it, it disappears quickly, no matter where we are, home, party, family reunion, it is always perfect. So I make mine the same way he does. And it is incredibly simple. You need only one or two ripe Haas avocados, the kind with very nubby and really dark green-to-black skin. They should give a bit when you poke or squeeze them, no rock hard avocados or very squishy ones either. You slice it open, remove the pit and then scrape out the lovely, velvety and luscious interior into a bowl. Next, you use a fork to mash it up, but not so much that it is all just a paste, it should be somewhat lumpy, like oatmeal, or maybe even a bit lumpier if you like it that way. Next you add the following:

***one or two teaspoons of finely minced yellow onion. Simple cooking onions are the best.

***1/8 – 1/4 cup finely diced fresh tomato (get the best ones you can find) If you love tomatoes, you can add more, but don’t overdo it, you might end up with watery guacamole.

***One to two tablespoons of fresh chopped cilantro, if you can get it.

***Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Now gently mix it all up (you don’t want to break your nicely mashed avocados down further to that paste I mentioned earlier), and enjoy!

   We usually eat our guacamole with  our own tortilla chips. which we make by cutting up fresh corn tortillas from the market into triangles and frying them in oil (vegetable or canola), until they are golden and crispy. If you haven’t done this part before, promise me you will watch some how-to video’s before you try it. You can never walk away from a pan of hot oil and if it starts to smoke, you need to turn it down, since it could catch fire. This hasn’t happened to me before, but it did happen to my sister-in-law a while back, and it scared the heck out of her, nothing like a fire on the stove!

   But back to the guacamole. You can eat it with your favorite tortilla chips or make veggie sandwiches, pitas or roll-ups with it. We don’t add garlic, fresh or powdered, chilies of any kind, lemon or lime juice, or anything else. I do love all those things, but they overpower the delicate and sublime flavor of perfect avocados. So there it is, my Dad’s guacamole recipe. I love it this way and I love my wonderful father too! Maybe I’ll share his fabulous chili recipe here one of these days…