Ingredients / Shopping List
2 ripe avocados pearsI small onion1 birds-eye red chilli2 tomatoesI limeSaltShake of Tabasco sauce
2 ripe avocados pears
I small onion
1 birds-eye red chilli
2 tomatoes
I lime
Salt
Shake of Tabasco sauce
Prep to Cook: Shallow dish, lemon squeezer, vegetable knife, measuring jug, teaspoon, fork, rolling pin, spatula, serving dish.
Prep: Prep the tomatoes:
Put the tomatoes in the measuring jug and pour over fresh boiling water
Wait a minute and then prod the tomatoes with the fork and remove from the water
Lift the skins from the tomatoes
Cut the tomatoes in half and take the seeds out with the teaspoon and discard
Dice up the tomato flesh into small cubes
Prep the dip ingredients:
Halve the lime and squeeze the juice from both halves
Peel and dice the onion very finely!
De-seed the birds eye chilli and remove the seeds, then dice extremely finely
Half the avocado using a sharp knife through the skin towards the stone, Twist the two halves of the fruit. Remove the stone( see cook’s know-how), then peel off skin and scrape with a teaspoon to gather all the green pear flesh.
Create the dip:
Cover the avocado flesh with the lime juice, add seasoning and then mash up roughly using a fork or the end of a rolling pin.
Add the onion and the tomato and mix thoroughly
Serve immediately – or if keeping for an hour or two, replace the avocado stone and press into the dip. Cover with cling film. Chill and use when required
This dip is at its best when freshly made and served. You can have it lumpy or very smooth. I prefer the former. If you are doubtful about the ripeness of the avocado then do not make it. It is always worth have an alternative at hand as sometimes even the best judgment about the avocado can be wrong.
Cooks Know How: Avocado pears are actually tropical fruits, from a tree called Persea Americana. You can buy green ‘Fuerte’ avocados, or black ‘Hass’ avocados. They provide more protein than most fruits and contain calories, nearly double that of a banana, because of their high oil content. They have a unique smooth texture when fully ripe. The flesh is flavoursome and a gorgeous colour. When you want to remove the big smooth stone in the centre cut through the skin with a sharp knife and ease the two halves apart. Chop down onto the stone with the sharp knife blade to secure a grip and wiggle out the stone. Use a teaspoon on ripe fruit to scrape all the lovely green flesh. It is perhaps a cooks’ greatest disappointment if an avocado fruit is not ripe enough and little can be done to correct the situation apart from starting over again with riper fruits. Fruit may be best purchased and held at room temperature for a couple of days in a brown paper bag alongside a tomato to ripen fully.
If you have the perfect avocado then making guacamole mash is simply the nicest way to enjoy them. Rough mashing or ‘smashing’ with the end of a rolling pin or simply a fork will leave some texture rather than reducing the avocado to puree. The lime simply provides acid to delay the enzymes in the avocado flesh from browning. It also gives sharpness to the flavour. Similarly the flavour is developed through using finely diced chilli together with ‘hot’ Tabasco sauce, a matured Tabasco pepper sauce . Your skill is really shown in how fine you can chop the little onion, in this recipe, the finer the better. You need texture and flavour but not intruding lumps. Also when dealing with the tomato the aim is to get the texture just right, removing the tough skin and the crunchy pips and dicing up the red flesh to combine through the mixture. The marriage of vegetables and flavourings creates a lovely mash to serve with fresh bread, flatbreads or fried cornchips.