traditional mexican cooking, one recipe at a time. served with a pizca of culture and travel.

How to keep your guacamole fresh and green

My family is always asking me to make guacamole. Always. I make it for parties and barbecues, when people casually drop by and even when somebody calls and asks “if I drop off the ingredients, will you make it for me?” My dad is by far the biggest culprit of the weekend phone call requesting a drive-by guacamole drop-off. Sometimes I tease him that if it weren’t for the guacamole, he wouldn’t stop by as often.

But with a jam-packed schedule and some travel time occasionally involved on one or both ends to get the ingredients and then deliver the goods to their final destination, it’s not always easy to make the guacamole and deliver and serve it right away. Yet nobody would ever know that it’s usually been in the refrigerator for a full day beforehand because my guacamole always arrives perfectly green and fresh as if I just made it.

I’m going to reveal a method and kitchen tip that is going to turn you into a guacamole hero. But be warned; I can’t be held responsible if friends and family start calling to drop off ingredients because you earn a reputation for having the greenest guacamole they’ve ever seen!

Need a basic guacamole recipe? I’ve got you covered.

HOW TO KEEP YOUR GUACAMOLE FRESH AND GREEN

STEP 1: Choose avocados that are barely ripe. They should give only very slightly when you press the skin. Prep all the ingredients (onion, chile, lime, tomato, cilantro, etc.) before you cut the avocados open. The flesh should not be too creamy/soft when you open them and you shouldn’t find brown or dark spots on the flesh at all.

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Wordless Wednesday: Tostadas Coyoacán

Earlier this week, my friend Julie, another Mexico Today ambassador, was lamenting on Twitter how much she missed tostadas Coyoacán—something I could definitely identify with…

So I promised her I’d dig out the perfect photo to post this week just for her…

You can follow Julie @mexicojulie and check out her blog, Midwesterner in Mexico.

• Leave a comment to let me and Julie know what kind of tostada is your favorite!

Wordless Wednesday: Everything tastes better with chile

A few weekends ago, my mom brought me a gift from a friend who’d been traveling—pistachios covered in chile powder. They reminded me a lot of the snacks I love to buy in the mercados of Mexico, especially the kinds of spicy nuts that are also flavored with dried garlic, known as dientes de ajo. Given my affinity for all kinds of spicy nut combinations, I’ve been careful not to sit down and eat the entire bag. I’ve been taking a little to work with me each day as an afternoon snack.

• What’s your favorite kind of spicy snack that includes nuts?

Wordless Wednesday: Mango for breakfast

It’s that time of year here in Chicago when the supermarkets seem to be overflowing with ripe mangoes. I bought some mango de manila over the weekend (a yellow-skinned variety) and ate it for breakfast with a little squeeze of lime juice.

• How do you like to incorporate fresh mangoes into your diet?

Tacos de rib eye

I’ve been buying thinly sliced rib eye and grilling it to serve as tacos for years, but the truth is that it can get kind of boring. I recently came up with a flavorful and easy fix that is literally only one ingredient but makes a world of difference: ponzu sauce. Yes, you read that correctly, I said ponzu sauce! I knew I had to share this recipe when my husband and chief taste-tester raved about this dish, even days after I served it.

No, ponzu sauce isn’t a Mexican ingredient, but it bears some striking similarities to the popular seasoning sauce known as Maggi that is widely consumed in Mexico. You may remember reading about Maggi here before in my cebollitas recipe, which is basically just grilled spring onions, lime juice and Maggi—a succulent side dish that also pairs well with these tacos.

What’s great about ponzu sauce is that it’s similar to Maggi in taste, already has a hint of citrus so adding lime juice isn’t necessary (but you still can, if you want), and ponzu is much lower in sodium per tablespoon than Maggi.

If it’s any indication how good it is, I’ve whipped this recipe up for dinner three times in the last two weeks and gotten no complaints about repeating the same dish. I’ve served it each time with a different salsa to make it just a little different. With grilling season right around the corner, this dish is definitely going to be my secret weapon for summer barbecues. Let me know how you like it!

RECETA | RECIPE

TACOS DE RIB EYE

• 1 lb. thinly sliced rib eye (about 1/4 inch thick)
• 1/2 cup Mitsukan ponzu sauce for the meat plus 1/8 cup for cebollitas
• 1 bunch of cebollitas (in English they’re called spring onions; they look like scallions but with a bulbous end instead of straight and skinny)

Directions:
FOR THE MEAT
Marinade the meat with 1/2 cup ponzu sauce for 30 minutes in a zippered plastic bag. Discard the liquid and bag, and grill meat over medium-high heat just long enough for each side to get grill marks and cook through.

FOR THE CEBOLLITAS
Use as much or as little ponzu as you’d like. You can choose whether to use the ponzu to soak the onions in advance, or pour over them or use as a dipping sauce after grilling. If you choose to soak them, you can put them in a shallow bowl and use about 1/8 cup-1/4 cup of ponzu sauce. Reserve the sauce if you’d like to use it again as a garnish or dip after grilling.

Serve meat with cebollitas and corn tortillas. These tacos also go great with guacamole or a fresh green salsa.

Yields 2 servings or about 6-8 tacos.

• How do you dress up your basic rib eye tacos?

Disclosure: This post is part of a sponsored series to promote Mizkan cooking wines, vinegars, sauces and marinades. We also received product samples and promotional material from Mizkan to assist in preparing this post. All opinions and recipes in this series are our own.

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