Guacamole

Uly and I were watching cooking shows on PBS yesterday morning, when Rick Bayless' show "One Plate at at Time" came on. Though I was rooting for Hubert Keller on Top Chef masters, Rick Bayless made me a fan with his creative and tasty-looking ingredients. The episode was centered on guacamole, and they showed several different kinds which made me totally crave some.

For my usual recipe, I just take some avocado, onions, cilantro, lime juice, jalapeno and/or serrano, and some chipotle powder. I usually make it really chunky and super-spicy, but I've been staying away from too spicy nowadays so I figure I'd make Rick Bayless' version. He has a bunch of different recipes, but I finally settled on this one, which looked like the simplest. One of the biggest differences from my usual recipe is he added tomatoes...I was iffy about it first, but I think it actually turned out really well. He also rinses white onions in water to help get rid of the bite. I gotta say though, I think I kind of prefer the bite of unrinsed yellow onions, and red onions are even better.

One of the reasons I decided to try out Rick Bayless' recipe is that I actually bought some Frontera-branded tortilla chips a while back at World Market. They were made with organic blue corn, and wound up being really good, tasted very rustic, definitely different from your usual tortilla chips.

I guess the takeaway from the show though, is that there's really no right or wrong way to make guacamole, just do whatever works for you. I do think I like his proportion of the avocado vs. other fixings, but I think next time that I make it I'll use red onions and add some chipotle powder since I like the smoky flavor it gives the guac.