Guacamole

The avocado is a thing of beauty. Creamy, rich and sensuous, it tastes delicious whether in a salad of ginger prawns, plum tomatoes and basil, or just eaten straight out the shell with a little salt.
This recipe celebrates its use in a dish that has been eaten in one form or another in Meso-America for over 500 years.
Originally just avocados mashed with some sea salt in a pestle and mortar, Guacamole (from an Aztec dialect via Nahuatl āhuacamoll, which literally translates to "avocado sauce", from āhuacatl (="avocado") +molli (="sauce") has many variants, the most well-known being with the addition of tomato and lemon juice. This is a direct descendent of Mantequilla de pobre ('poor man's butter') which consisted of mashed avocados, oil, tomato and citrus juice. 
There isn't really a right or a wrong way to make Guacamole, you can customise it to your own liking, but the avocado carries flavours so well that it's great as the base for a dish with a big, punchy taste.
Try to use Hass avocados, which are fattier and have a stronger flavour.

Ingredients

3 ripe Hass avocados

Approx. 2 tblspns creme fraiche
1 medium red onion

3-4 tomatoes, depending on size

2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and nibbed (root and tip cut off)

1 lemon

Splash of smoked chipotle tabasco sauce, or your favourite hot sauce 

1 heaped tblspn cumin seeds, toasted

Half bunch fresh cilantro (coriander root and leaves)

Salt and pepper

Recipe

Peel and chop the onion 'brunoise' (into small dice). Set aside.

Halve the tomatos and de-seed them, then chop them as you did the onion. Set these aside too.

Place the toasted cumin seeds in a pestle and mortar or coffee/spice grinder, and powder them.

Split the garlic cloves in half, remove the bitter green stem inside if present, then grate or chop into a fine paste. 

Seperate the cilantro leaves and roots. Finely chop the cilantro root and roughly chop the leaves.

Squeeze the lemon.

Now you're ready to assemble the Guac.

Slice the avocados in half lengthways around the stone, then pull the halves apart. Chop into the stone with a knive blade so it sticks, then pull the knife away to remove the stone.

Remove the flesh with a spoon, then mash it with a potato masher or in a pestle and mortar. It's up to you how smooth or chunky you want it. 

At this point, taste the unadulterated avocado to determine how much salt it needs. Some avocados taste 'saltier' than others. Season the avocados with salt and pepper.

Stir in the creme fraiche, which adds volume, makes it lighter and balances the richness of the avocado.

Add the garlic paste, hot sauce and lemon juice to taste. Treat it as if you were seasoning a caesar dressing; you want to be able to taste each individual component seperately.

Add half the cumin and half the coriander root/leaves, then check for salt again and adjust the seasonings until you reach a balance you like. We haven't added any of the 'solid' ingredients yet because it's easier to taste and adjust without having them in the mix.

When you're happy, add the diced tomatoes and onion which give texture and colour, and garnish with some of the coriander leaves. 

Enjoy!