Guacamole means “sauce made with avocado” and comes from Nahuatl, the pre-Columbian language still spoken in some parts of Mexico: guac—avocado—and mole—a sauce made of more than one chile or ingredient. The best guacamoles are prepared in a stone mortar or molcajete. The chiles and cilantro are ground with lime and salt, and the avocados and tomatoes are mashed in, layering the flavors and creating a coarser, more interesting texture.
Recipe information
Yield
makes 3 1/2 cups
Ingredients
4 medium avocados
2 Roma tomatoes
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon chopped red onion, rinsed briefly under cold water
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
4 large serrano chiles, stemmed and minced very fine, with seeds
Preparation
Place the avocados, tomatoes, cilantro, onion, and lime juice in a bowl and gently mash with a fork to blend together. Slowly add the salt and chiles, mixing and tasting until seasoned to your liking. Serve immediately.
Tacos by Mark Miller with Benjamin Hargett and Jane Horn. Copyright © 2009 by Mark Miller with Benjamin Hargett and Jane Horn. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
Mark Miller is the acclaimed chef-founder of Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has started and owned thirteen different restaurants on three continents from 1979 to 2008. He is the author of ten books with nearly 1 million copies in print, including Tacos, The Great Chile Book, The Great Salsa Book, and Coyote Cafe. Mark currently works in International Culinary Consulting and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Benjamin Hargett is a travel-loving chef who has cooked in Europe, the Carribean, Mexico, and the United States, where he worked with Mark Miller at the Coyote Café for many years.
