There’s a saying that if you want to stop a guitar player from playing, put some sheet music in front of him.
Not all that far off in my experience.
If you want to screw the fat guy up cooking wise… make a simple request; “come to our event and bring an appetizer or something to pass”. How much do I hate that?
I just don’t have alot of quick recipes on deck to react to those kind of requests. I just can’t do the cream cheese and sausage football dip thing sometimes. I want something different.
Inevitably I wind up at the grocery store looking for stuff to bring, and inevitably nothing looks or sounds good.
Then this weekend, the brain kicked. Guacamole! It’s easy, I make it well and people seem to like it.
Here’s my recepie-
Two ripe avocados
3 cloves garlic- smashed
One medium fresh tomato- diced
Two jalapeno peppers; seeded, ribbed and diced about as small as I can get them.
Two shallots, diced.
Tsp of salt, tsp of pepper.
Juice from one lime.
Mash the avocado’s until sort of smooth. I like a few chunks left. With out chucks it looks like green paste that defines store bought guac.
Add the garlic, tomato, peppers, shallots and salt and pepper.
Mix together with a spoon.
Add lime juice and salt to taste.
Quick, easy, deslish.
Now avocados aren’t available all year where I live so I have a back up-
Hungarian hot sauce- this stuff is a wonderful relish, you can eat it with a spoon if you care too, or over meats or chicken. Or as a cold dip. BTW, it’s not all that hot. It’s a modification of a recipe from Cooks Country who modified a recipe from Barberton Ohio, they call it Barberton hot sauce, which in its own is a modified version of a Serbian sauce called satrash, I tweaked it, beefed up the paprikash and since paprika is my all time favorite spice, I’m calling it Hungarian Hot sauce.
Side note, if you like to cook and you don’t get Cooks Country from America’s Test Kitchen do so, it’s great. And you can do it here.
Here you go-
Olive Oil
1 Onion, diced
2 jalapeno’s diced, ribbed and seeded
1 large red bell pepper roasted and cubed
1 green pepper cubed
4 tsp paprika, and remember kiddos, Sank ONLY used Szeged parika, now if you want to heat things up try half HOT szeged and half regular.
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can diced tomatos
Small handfull of brown sugar
Small handful of long grain white rice to absorb moisture and thicken the sauce.
I do the three times round the pan with olive oil.
Add the green peppers and onions and stir, cook until they’re soft, a few minutes or so. Add the paprika and the roasted peppers and stir until fragrant, 30 seconds or so. Add a cup and a half of water and the tomato’s from the can, with the juice. Stir. Add brown sugar and rice and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
When it’s done set off the heat let it cool. If you want, refrigerate and serve cold as a dip or keep it warm and pour some over a block of cream cheese with crackers. A great appetizer that folks probably haven’t seen before.
