It’s time to drop the tomatoes and onion from your guacamole, America, for good. This super-simple but spicy recipe is inspired by years of lazy Sunday afternoons spent on friends’ rooftops or patios in Mexico City, grilling meat and cactus paddles, pouring micheladas. Lots of busy urban professionals who nurse hangovers on weekends swear by this style. This isn’t a guacamole to use as a garnish — this is a centerpiece. It calls for nothing more than avocado, mashed garlic, diced serrano peppers, sea salt and lime juice. Maybe a bit of finely chopped cilantro on top. Use a molcajete or a mortar and pestle to better fuse all the flavors.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
This guacamole will look deceptively like simple smashed avocado in a bowl, but after one bite, the heat and acid of its bare-bones ingredients might make you never again return to tricolor guacamole (or any of the infuriatingly ridiculous interpretations from social media). Use crumbled tostadas over store-bought tortilla chips or, with any tortillas sitting in your fridge, flash-fry your own and douse with coarse salt while still hot — the crunch of a fresh, warm chip under buttery avocado can’t be equaled.
