Guacamole for one

Cinco de Mayo was just days ago and, whilst you don’t have to wait until then to enjoy foods with a Mexican accent, I did just happen to have avocados and tomatoes in the fridge on the fifth, so I threw together a little guacamole for one.

We don’t actually celebrate Cinco de Mayo here either, but mentions on the internet, just made me think, “Oh,now there’s an idea for my tea today.”

But since most recipes would produce enough guacamole to provision the army, it needed reducing to proportions small enough for one person.

In my personal taste test, I found that it knocked together perfectly adequately (if not entirely authentically), as follows:

Guacamole for one

Ingredients:

1 small, ripe avocado
Squeeze of lemon juice
1/2 a fresh beef tomato, diced finely
onion (see below)
cilantro/coriander, if you’ve got some
salt
Chilli powder or pimenton picante (Hot Smoked Paprika)

Preparation:

1. Slice avocado in half and discard pit. Scoop out of shell with a spoon and place in a bowl.
2. Squeeze in a dash of lemon juice immediately to prevent browning. Use a fork to mash avacadoes to desired consistency.
3. Add onions and cilantro (if using) and diced tomato.
4. Add salt to taste and dash of chilli powder or pimenton picante

The proportion of onion to avocado given in the traditional recipe was one medium onion to every 5 avocados, so what you want for one is not a lot; namely one-fifth of an onion. A few slivers really, which you might have if you are making something else that day that requires a whole onion, from which you can borrow. If not, you can always leave the onion out. Sure, it’s not the same, but it’s edible.

Similarly, I did not have any cilantro/coriander to hand either.

My lemon juice comes out of a bottle, because that keeps better.

Also because it is what I have in the cupboard, I substituted a small sprinkle of pimenton picante in place of the optional fresh jalapenos. This also served to make up for the lack of the two other ingredients and is something that you are likely to have to hand in your tool kit!

This produced one good sized dollop of guacamole that was plenty, without being too much, with crusty bread (or tortilla chips) for a light tea or supper for one. What to do with the other half tomato? If you have another avocado, you can do the same tomorrow.