Friends of Web Watch have a large-scale annual Cinco de Mayo party featuring a salsa competition. We’ve been lucky enough to have walked away a prize every year with various takes on salsa, so when this year’s invitation indicated that there would be a guacamole competition instead (“to shake things up a bit”), we took that on as a challenge.
Because, let’s face it, guacamole really isn’t all that hard to make. It’s making prize-winning guacamole that people will declare as “the best thing I ever ate” that takes a little bit more effort.
So a few weeks ago, we were watching Food Network’s BEST THINGS I EVER ATE (“Totally Unexpected”). Web Watch readers will remember this show as introducing us to Zarela’s Arroz con Crema y Poblanos, and each episode shows us some of the more interesting things that restaurants are doing with food.
In this episode, the Food Network personalities were talking about foods that they never would have though to combine that totally surprised them. So when Iron Chef Michael Symon mentioned that one of his favorite surprising foods was the Guacamole with Sage, Bacon, and Bleu Cheese from Lopez Southwestern Kitchen in Cleveland, Web Watch knew that we might have a chance of winning the competition yet again if we could take that concept and make it our own.
So we did.
And we won. Here is what we came up with – enjoy!:
Recipe: Guacamole with Bacon and Blue Cheese
By:
Summary: Award-winning recipe for Guacamole with Bacon and Blue Cheese, inspired by the Food Network
Ingredients
- 3 avocados
- 2 strips hickory-smoked bacon, crumbled
- 1/4 cup blue cheese or gorgonzola cheese, crumbled and room temperature
- 1/4 red onion, finely chopped
- 1 roma tomato, finely chopped
- 1/2 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1/2 fresh lime or 1/2 package of True Lime
- 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, finely chopped
- Tabasco brand hot sauce, garlic flavor (to taste)
- cumin powder, to taste
- chipolte chili powder, to taste
- Durkee Six Pepper Blend, to taste
Instructions
- Combine onion, tomato, jalapeno, cilantro, and garlic in a bowl. Mix well, cover, and sit in refrigerator for at least 60 minutes.
- Chop 1 avocado into small chunks. Add to bowl with other ingredients
- Mush remaining 2 avocados and add to bowl. Fold into mixture.
- Add blue cheese and bacon crumbles. Fold again — try not to stir the guacamole up too much, as you want to maintain the firmness of the avocados as much as possible.
- Add Tabasco, chipolte powder, cumin powder, and Six Pepper Blend to taste. Fold in as necessary
- Squeeze 1/2 lime or add True Lime over mixture. Fold in again.(Why use one over the other? Some people think that the lime juice makes the guac a little more soupy, while the True Lime keeps the guac a bit drier. Your mileage may vary, but we’ve never had a problem with our guac being too watery from lime juice.
Preparation time: 15 minute(s)
Total time: 15 minutes
Recipe type:appetizer
Culinary tradition: Mexican
My rating
May 4, 2010
This guacamole tastes great by itself, but it is awesome when combined in steak fajitas.
But we couldn’t let a guacamole-related post get by this year without including THE GUACAMOLE SONG: