Holy Guacamole!

Last weekend, guest blogger Molly came for a long overdue visit.  On Saturday, we went to NYC and ate ourselves into a food coma: we had the world’s best falafel at Taim in the West Village, then trekked our way over to The Doughnut Plant in the Lower East Side for Peanut-Butter-Glazed-and-Blackberry-Jam Filled doughnuts.  SO. GOOD.
We had big plans for Sunday – we were going to make a variation on the macaroni & cheese recipe I posted earlier this month. Before we went food shopping on Friday night for the necessary ingredients, Molly happened to find a recipe in her purse for bacon guacamole that she had torn out of the newspaper several months back.  This was clearly fate, since a) it was a recipe by Top Chef Master Rick Bayless, one of my favorite chefs, b) it has bacon in it, and c) it has avocado in it.  This is, quite clearly, a trinity of awesomeness. 
Bacon and Tomato Guacamole
What You’ll Need:

• 5 strips medium-thick bacon OR 8 strips regular-cut bacon
  
• 3 medium/large ripe avocados (see note)
  
• ½ medium white onion, chopped into ¼-inch pieces
  
• 2 or 3 canned chipotle chiles en adobo, removed from the sauce, stemmed, slit open, seeds removed, and finely chopped
  
• 1 medium-large ripe tomato, cored and chopped into ¼-inch pieces
  
• ¼ cup (loosely packed) cilantro, roughly chopped, plus extra for garnish
  
• 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
  
• Salt to taste

**Note: When selecting avocados, you can test for ripeness by pressing your thumb down into the fruit.  If your thumbprint remains, it is ripe.  However, as we soon learned, this level of ripeness means they should be used immediately.  If you aren’t planning on using the avocados that day, choose ones that are slightly firmer.
What To Do:
First, Master Rick instructed us that we should cook the bacon strips in a skillet over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until they were crispy and browned.

We ended up cooking the entire package of bacon, because we didn’t have the thick-cut type and thought we’d need to add a few extra slices to compensate.  Also, we had to taste-test it several times just to make sure it wasn’t poisoned.
While I was cooking the bacon, Molly got to work preparing the avocados.  Using a sharp knife, slice carefully through the fruit around the pit, then twist the two halves so they separate.  We had purchased the avocados at their perfect ripeness on Friday night, and had originally planned to make this dish on Saturday night after getting home from NYC. However, we were both too tired and WAY too full to make this when we got back, so it waited until Sunday.  This was a big mistake – the avocados had over-ripened, and instead of being a lovely green, they were starting to turn brown and get stringy.  Not appealing.  Molly scraped out the parts that were usable then mashed them in a bowl until they were smooth. We then had to cheat by adding one tub of Trader Joe’s guacamole so that we’d have about the right amount of avocado in proportion to our other ingredients.

As the second batch of bacon was cooking, I got to work chopping the tomato and onion, while Molly prepared the chipotle chiles.  You can find these in the international section of your supermarket for about $2 per can.

As the instructions mentioned, you need to open these chiles up and remove the seeds (they are the hottest part).  We used 3 peppers and there was plenty of heat in our guacamole; since we both like spicy foods, this suited us just fine, but if you prefer a milder taste then I would suggest using only 2 peppers.
After the peppers were sliced and diced, the bacon was drained on paper towels and chopped into large crumbles.

The onion, tomato, chile peppers, and about ⅔ of the bacon were tossed into the bowl with the avocado. This was topped with a generous helping of the fresh chopped cilantro.

We gently mixed all of the ingredients together so as not to pulverize the tomato until they reached a uniform mixture.

Season the guacamole with salt and lime juice to taste (I hand squeezed a half of a lime into it without measuring and it was just right). Right before eating, top with the rest of the bacon and more cilantro, if desired.

Besides each other, there are few things that Molly and I love more in this world than bacon and avocados (particularly in the form of guacamole), so it was no surprise that this was pretty freaking amazing.  The chipotle peppers gave a smoky heat that helps cut the creamy nature of the avocado, while the fresh onion and crispy bacon helped liven up the texture.  Our only complaint, if you could call it one, was that there wasn’t quite enough bacon (really, is there such a thing as too much bacon?!). I think this might be because we used regular-cut bacon instead of the thick-cut that Master Chef Rick advised. Regardless, this was extremely tasty, very easy to make, and a perfect munchy dish for a lazy Sunday afternoon. You can find the original recipe for this, and many other sure-to-be-delicious meals, in Rick’s new book, Fiesta at Rick's.