Guacamole

February 11, 2007 at 1:02 pm (B plus (3.5 stars, like a lot), Cook's Illustrated, Mexican & S. American, Sauce/dressing)

I got adventurous and tried Cook’s Illustrated light guacamole recipe using… frozen lima beans.  That’s right, scary, but true.

• 1 medium tomato (about 5 ounces), cored, seeded, and chopped fine (about 1 cup) ~ I used canned petite diced
• 1 cup frozen *mature* lima beans (about 5 ounces) (I accidentally bought baby lima beans. They say in this case it’s hard to skin them so I just left the skins on for the fiber. The guacamole was a tad bit grainy due to the skins.)
• 1 medium ripe avocado, preferably Haas (about 7 ounces)
• 3 Tbs. juice from 2 limes
• 2 Tbs. reduced-fat mayonnaise (I omitted this since I didn’t have it)
• 1/2 tsp. salt (I used 1/4 tsp. It was fine, but prob. would have been fine with 1/2 tsp. as well.)
• 1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro leaves
• 1 medium jalepeno chile, stemmed, seeded, and minced
• 1 Tbs. minced red onion or shallot
• 1 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1 tsp.)
• 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
• fresh ground black pepper

1. Place the tomato in a small colander set inside a bowl and set aside to drain while preparing the rest of the guacamole.
2. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a small sauce pan over high heat. Add the frozen lima beans and cook until creamy, about 5 minutes. Drain the beans and rinse under cold water until cool. Pat the beans dry with paper towels then remove the skins by pinching the beans so the skins slide off.
3. Halve the avocado, remove the pit, and scoop out a quarter of the flesh. Puree a quarter of the avocado, skinned lima beans, lime juice, mayo, and salt together in a food processor until smooth, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.
4. Cube the remaining three-quarters of the avocado into 1/2-inch pieces, and scrape into a medium bowl. Add the pureed lima mixture, drained tomato, cilantro, jalepeno, onion, garlic, and cumin, and stir gently to combine. Season to taste with pepper. Transfer the guacamole to a serving bowl; cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until the flavors meld, about 1 hour.

Makes 2 cups. They say a serving is 1/4 cup:

70 cal, 4g fat, .5g sat fat, 0 chol, 8g carb, 2g protein, 3g fiber, 210mg sodiumMy Notes:

Cook’s Illustrated says that the guacamole, covered with plastic wrap pressed flush against the surface of the dip, can be refrigerated for up to 1 day. Bring to room temperature and season with additional lime juice, salt, and pepper, as needed before serving.  I’m in a bit leery of plastic wrap touching my food, esp. fatty foods, so I just stored mine in a regular tupperware, and it was fine~didn’t brown at all. It lasted fine for two days.  It might have been fine for longer even, but I couldn’t tell you, since after two days it was all gone .

The adulterated guacamole has more fiber and protein, and less fat than normal guacamole. I think standard guacamole is about 77% fat, but this is about 40% fat.

The flavor was very good~it basically tasted like guacamole. It definitely didn’t taste as rich as normal, but with all the tomatoes, cilantro, jalepeno, garlic, lime juice etc. once it was in my burrito I’m not sure I would have noticed. I gave it to a friend and she said it “tasted very fresh”.  I told her that I put it in a new ingredient and asked her to identify it~she had no idea. Said it tasted like very yummy guacamole to her.

I don’t know if I would make this just to lower the calorie/fat content of guacamole, unless I was eating it with chips, in which case the chips have enough fat already.  I do consider the recipe a keeper though, for those situations where I only have one avocado and want to make a bigger batch for more people! Those things are expensive!

BTW, cook’s illustrated said they tried green peas and asparagus and edamame but they liked the lima beans the best.  They said peas gave it an earthy flavor and too sweet, asparagus watered it down and had a fibrous texture and unappetizing army green color. Edamame worked well to carry the flavor, but gave it a grainy texture.

Rating: B