Avocados are very popular w/ us. I think we are no exception. Especially since we are in Southern France we like to create some avocado mess & indulge w/ fresh baguette for our dinner. Afterwards we may have some cheese … for the finish.
As I already told you there is only a tiny kitchen in our home so preparing excessive meals for lunch or dinner, requiring cooking & frying & preparing a sauce & managing chopping vegetables …, is laborious. We prefer simple meals like sandwiches, one-pot-pasta, one-pot-fried-rice … or when provided w/ fresh baguette simple salads or delicacies like avocado mess or hummus or … whatever.
Furthermore I rely on ready-to-use products like red or green pesto, tomato pulp out of a can, cooked rice … whatever is necessary. Fortunately there is an oven which I use to prepare baked rosemary potatoes, baked courgettes, bakes aubergines … which end up in a container in our fridge for further use. I’m fine w/ it: it saves time & needs only a minimum of cooking equipment.
Cong back to the avocados: There is more than 1 recipe for avocado mess or – the next step – guacamole. I tried quite a lot, but finally I ended up w/ quite an easy approach which may also be used as a basis for guacamole.
For my simple avocado mess we only need:
- avocado
- clove of garlic
- lemon oil
- Greek yoghurt or sour cream
- salt & pepper.
Take a bowl, cut the clove of garlic in half & rub the bowl thoroughly w/ the fresh garlic.
The avocado has to be ripe i. e. when pressing the fruit it should feel soft.
Cut the avocado in quarts and peel it – if ripe it is easy to rip the peel off (w/o a knife!). Put the avocado pulp in the bowl & mash – w/ a fork or a masher. (Using a handheld blender isn’t recommended by me because the pulp will get so fine that it oxidizes rapidly. If the avocado is manually mashed the process is delayed.)
Now add the lemon oil, the Greek yoghurt or the sour cream & mix w/ a spoon or an egg whip. The lemon oil also helps from oxidation … although you may also work w/o lemon oil (depending on availability!). If you are short of Greek yoghurt or sour cream you may also use plain yoghurt (3,5%) or crème fraîche …).
Finally add salt & pepper to taste.
Enjoy … however, you may also proceed to preparing guacamole.
Guacamole is based on my avocado mess, but enriched:
- more fresh mashed garlic
- minced red chili (fresh or dried)
- chopped spring onion
- chopped tomato
- lemon juice or lime juice
- ground cumin or ground coriander.
Just mash & mince & chop everything & mix into the avocado mess w/ a spoon. Finally add once more salt & pepper to taste.
Guacamole is far more tasty than avocado mess. Depending on the amount of garlic, chili, lemon or lime juice it and be very hot & spicy. I recommend that you just try to find your best mix for guacamole: enhancing the cumin or coriander flavour, really hot w/ some chilis, more tomato & spring onion for structure … The recipe shows a mix for starting guacamole adventures.
Generally you put a big bowl filled w/ nachos (Tex-Mex nachos) on the table & a bowl filled w/ guacamole. (Of course you may also serve guacamole w/ baguette or sourdough bread or …).
Enjoy!
- 1 avocado
- 2 tbsp sour cream (20%) or Greek yoghurt (10%)
- a dash of lemon oil (i. e. oil flavored w/ lemon) (optional)
- 1 clove of garlic
- salt & pepper
- 1 medium tomato or 3-4 cherry tomatoes or ½-¼ of a beef tomato
- 1 spring onion
- ½ tsp lemon juice or lime juice
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 chili (fresh or dried)
- ½ tsp ground cumin or ground coriander
- 1-2 tbsp fresh cilantro (optional)
- Cut the clove of garlic in half & rub a bowl with the garlic halves.
- Peel the avocado & remove the pit; mash the avocado pulp.
- Add sour cream or Greek yoghurt & whisk thoroughly.
- Add lemon oil & whisk – optional.
- Add salt & pepper to taste.
- Start w/ the avocado mess & add ground cumin or cground coriander & whisk.
- Add lemon juice or lime juice & whisk.
- Mash the clove of garlic & add it.
- Mince the chili (discard the seeds) & add it.
- Chop the tomato (discard the seeds & the pulp!) & add it.
- Chop the spring onion & add it.
- Mix w/ a spoon.
- Add salt & pepper to taste – once again.
- Chop the fresh cilantro & scatter on top – optional.
