Yakityak's Guacamole Recipe

• Halve the avocados and scoop out the flesh into a bowl. Tip: an avocado is ripe if it is slightly squeezable but not mushy. The flesh should come out of the skin easily with a fork or spoon.
• Add the tomato, onion, garlic and cilantro, and mush the whole thing with a fork to combine.
• 'Fork in' the half lemon. To do this, squeeze the lemon half with one hand while twisting a fork back and forth into the flesh of the lemon with the other to really get most of the meat out of the lemon. You'll have to fish the lemon seeds out of the bowl.
• Add in the salt and pepper to taste, and mash the guacamole with a fork until it reaches a spreadable but still chunky consistency.
• Clean up the avocado pits and toss in the bowl - supposedly they help keep the guacamole from oxidizing (turning brown). I don't know if that's really true, but it looks cool.

Some other notes on guacamole (that I got from a friend from Mexico):

• Some purists maintain that you shouldn't use tomato in guacamole, but rather tomatillo. Personally I like tomato, but not if it's too juicy. Anyway, tomatillo can be hard to find in US grocery stores at certain times of the year, so you may be stuck with a tomato anyway. If you do decide to go with tomatillo, you must remove the outer papery husk and wash the tomatillo well - it will be sticky feeling until you wash it well. Tomatillo has less juice than a tomato, so you don't need to worry about that or the seeds. Tomatillo also has a more sour, lemony taste than tomato, so you may wish to ease up on the use of lemon if you're going with tomatillo. Just do a taste test before you add in the lemon.
• If you want to give your guacamole a little kick in the pants, add in some minced serrano chili peppers. Remember that heat is almost as dependent upon whether or not you include the chili pepper seeds as it is on the number of chiles used.
• There is a subset of purists who maintain that only lime must be used, not lemon. I don't agree, but lime certainly adds a very nice flavor and you might prefer it, so give it a try some time.
• If you're unfortunate enough to not be able to get ripe avocados and have to settle for rock hard ones, your guacamole may not be creamy enough. Please, do not add mayonaise. This is a travesty. If you need to make it a little more creamy, try adding in a splash of olive oil. Mayonaise changes the flavor of the guacamole significantly... restaurants only cut their guacamole with mayonaise because it's a lot cheaper than using more avocado!
• Also, guacamole is traditionally a textured spread, not a puree. You should be able to see the individual chunks of tomato/tomatillo, cilantro, onion, etc. If the avocado is ripe, it is so easy to mash by fork that a food processor would hardly be necessary, and if it isn't ripe, the addition of a splash of olive oil ought to help you along enough. I guess what I'm trying to say is that a food processor isn't called for - it will ruin the consistency of the dish. (And that's coming from a woman who loves her food processor!)

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