Guaco de Gallo

A Delectable Marriage of Tex-Mex Favorites

Description:  

You can make guacamole.  You can make pico de gallo.  But making them together provides for a pleasant pairing of multi-faceted foods that both reach pretty far on the palate spectrum.  It is kind of like having sauerkraut and the grey poupon for brats.  You can have kraut on the brat.  You can have just the mustard on the brat.  Both distinct, would give the brat great taste, but together on the brat is much like if Thor and Mystique had a baby, or Eddie Gordo and Sonya Blade in the fighter video game world, or Mr. Fantastic and Elastigirl from The Incredibles, or would that baby be like a freakishly powerful gumby?  I digress.  You get the idea.  

I know what you are thinking.  "What does he mean by multi-faceted?  Guac is guac and pico is pico."  Knock off the tautology and start thinking out of the box.  I mean you can just dip a nice tortilla chip or sensible carrot or celery into them, or you can flip a dollop onto a taco, or you can spread them onto a burger to Tex Mex-style it, or heck, you could take a spoonful of it and taste right from the source.  I know I am guilty of doing that from time to time. 

Again, I know what you are thinking.  "I don't even know where to start.  To do guac or pico right is hard."  Wrong.  Both are super easy and both are easy to manipulate if you feel like you want it to be spicier or limier.  Check out this recipe and you will soon be that go-to guy or gal that is "socially assigned" by your peers to tackle the guacamole and/or pico for that Cinco de Mayo party or monthly margarita get-together.  

Ingredients needed:

3 avocadoes

5 plum tomatoes OR 3 regular (large) tomatoes

5 jalapeños

3 limes

2 onions (white or sweet)

1 bushel of cilantro

4 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon cumin

2 tablespoons black pepper

2.5 tablespoons sea salt

Type: Side, Between-meal Snack

Dietary Orientation: Vegan, Vegetarian (Herbivore)

Prep Time: 10 min

Cook Time: 15 min

Cool Time: 0 min (Optional: let the dishes sit for 30 min. to let flavors marry)

Eating Time: 25 minutes

Servings: 6 per dish 

Cooking Instructions:

1. Place small saucepan on the stove.  Mince all of the garlic up.  Turn saucepan on.  Let it get hot, then turn down the heat a little.  Place garlic into the sauce pan.  Do not put any oil into the pan.  Brown the garlic, flipping the pan pro-chef style every 30s for about 3-4 min.   

2.  Deseed the jalapenos.  Mince those up and take two jalapeno's worth and repeat the roasting process in step one.  Not too roasted because we don't want to cook out the spicy factor.

2.  After roasting the garlic and jalapenos a bit, let's get into chop mode.  If you have someone that can sous-chef it with you (and is going to be consuming later), the process will go a bit faster, but for now, you'll be chopping.  Then, once all is prepped, it's all downhill from there.  It's really all about mixing.

2. Cube the onions (half inch).  Cube the tomatoes (half inch).  Slice the avocados in half, take out the pits (knife method: lodge the blade into the pit and turn to dislodge without affecting the avocado).  Run the blade through the avocado half like a grid pattern so you can extract easily with a spoon when you're ready to go.

3. Slice (quarter inch) the cilantro (about 10 stalks).

4. Get out two bowls.  Let's start with the pico.  Take 1.25 of the cubed onions, 3 minced (not roasted) jalapenos, half of roasted minced garlic, 3 cubed tomatoes, and half of the freshly cut cilantro and place into box.  Mix.

5. Get the lime cut up.  You'll be using at least one whole lime (add more if you need to because remember, pico is all about the tarry time flavor).  Squeeze in lime.  Mix in 1 tsp of red pepper flakes.  Mix in a scant tblspn of salt and 1/2 tblspn of cracked black pepper.  Pico donzo.  Now Guac.

6. In second bowl, place rest of onions, jalapenos, and garlic and mash lightly with a fork (or other tool) to release flavors.  This will be the base.  Then, add avocados (take spoon and scoop out the avocados by running it between the avocado and inside of the skin).  Mix and mash lightly.  Add rest of tomatoes while mashing.    

7. Add 3/4 of a lime's worth of juice, 1 tblspn cumin, 1 tblspn sea salt, 1 tblspn cracked black pepper.  Remember, these are to taste, so add more if you want.  I like to add more lime, but that's me.  

8. Mix.  Finally, add the cilantro and mix again.  You're ready to go.