Hola, everyone! Lauren here, and Jeremy. One of my favorite green foods is the avocado. It’s creamy and full of healthy fats that can calm a craving quickly, as opposed to reaching for that vanilla ice cream in the back of the freezer. Now that you’re hungry, let’s have a look at my favorite green dip, guacamole.
My mother and I have 2 very different ways of making guacamole. I’ll go first. I like zesty flavor combinations when it comes to Mexican and try to always have a sense of finesse in my cooking style.
1 avocado
1 ½ Tbs. Plain Greek yogurt
A smidge of chopped cilantro
¼ cup diced jalapeno
All the juice from ½ a lemon
Mine came out very creamy with a pleasant pastel green color to it. I could taste the yogurt too much versus the avocado, but it did cut back on the heat of the jalapeno. Having diced the jalapeno, it gave it a chunky level of texture, so it wasn’t one note. The lemon juice really complimented the spice and herb making it a tad brighter. There was a sequence to the taste. First was the lemon, then the avocado-yogurt, (The combo tastes like cheese to me. I don’t know why.) ending with the spices. Since the yogurt was so powerful, it masked half of the avocado. I think my next attempt will take it down to only ¾ Tbs. Overall, I would give it a 4 out of 5.
Mom took a much simpler route to her guacamole, as suits her usual “less is more” cooking style; keeping the integrity of the main ingredient by using only the necessities and a gentle hand when seasoning.
1 avocado
Lime juice
1 garlic clove
Finely chopped onion
A pinch of pink salt
Hers seemed a bit one dimensional at first taste. There wasn’t that same surprise heat which I’m sure would be appreciated by some. Mom’s classic onion and garlic duo complement each other well with the pinch of pink salt, but the question lays in how much is masked by the avocado. It takes some effort for that onion to come through. Note that she used a finely chopped onion rather than the flakes or powders. I couldn’t help but re-think the texture. If it were me, I would have probably gone with the more traditional route and diced up a purple onion to throw into the mix, maybe even a roma tomato or two too. That way, you get the nice acidic note to cut through the creamy fattiness of the avocado giving the guacamole more dimensions to its taste. Hers was thicker and didn’t have the overwhelming creaminess of mine, but not enough to call it pasty either. The element of acidity in hers was pretty much the same, but hers hit in a more concentrated way, as opposed to being bright like the lemon. I would call hers smooth, familiar and satisfying.
If I didn’t know better, I would very easily mistake hers for the guacamole served at “Mexican Connection” in Saratoga. http://www.mexconx.com It was the exact same texture and color, but theirs was missing that slight sour kick. There was that same sense of consistency and no tricks out of the hat to throw me off-guard. It was a normal, elementary, and easily recognized guacamole. The fact that when Jeremy and I opened up our leftovers the next day and saw that it had already started to brown tells us right away that this was home-made. No preservatives or additives were added anywhere. It goes to show that with real guacamole, you either eat it now, or throw it out 3 days later.
If we had to rank the 3, we would definitely put Mexican Connection’s on the bronze podium. It was a nice creamy bite to cool me off after a dunk in the hot sauce. It tasted great with the tortilla chips they were serving by the buckets, but there was nothing exciting about it to tempt me to take another bite.
Her mom’s guacamole would be in second place because hers had all of the same great points for taste, texture and uniformity, but with that slight kick of acidity to please more than just an avocado craving.
Mine I would put on top because it had a trio of flavor, and a few different sensations that went well together. But since it came out unevenly and the yogurt was a blob too much, it’s no run away. There is work to be done with mine and much to be said about when it is too much and when to stick to the basics.
What do you think of these dips? How you do make a guacamole grand? Tell us in the comments! We would love to hear from you. Adios!