Name: Grilled Guacamole
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 8 serving(s)
Ingredients: 2 medium avocados; 2 medium jalapeños; 2 cloves garlic, unpeeled; Juice of 1½ limes; 1/2 large red onion, chopped (about ½ cup); 1 medium tomato, seeds removed and chopped; 1/4 c. freshly chopped cilantro

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- I'm Lena and today I'm on the quest to make the best guacamole ever. I'm going to test some celebrity recipes, some classic recipes, and some downright strange recipes. We'll taste test along the way, until I find my perfect guac. Recipe number one. We have it right here on the shelf. We must always do what Beyonce tells us to do. (laughs) - ♪ Okay ladies now let's get into it ♪ - All right, I'm gonna hop to it. So, I'm gonna get this pit out. Safety first. Always use one of these to avoid avocado hand. Avocado hand is when someone tries to take a pit out of their avocado without the proper safety precautions and they just take it and they just whack it and then they cut their hand, and it's just gross and if you've seen the pictures you know. So, I like to use just a little kitchen towel just for some added support. And then you wanna use the base of the knife to get into the pit. Ta-da! One of my favorite people, Beyonce. Hers is a very classic, it's a good way to start. Nothing crazy, although she does require you to smash the avocado with a spoon. I will be making smaller versions of all these because avocados are expensive and I don't wanna waste too much ingredients, so we're gonna do small batches of each. (upbeat music) Recipe number two. Our girl, Chrissy Teigen's recipe. - I'm like, "It's happening!" - Ground cumin, cayenne, garlic powder, diced tomato, chopped cilantro, yellow onion, garlic. She uses cheddar cheese in her guac. She's a nut job, but we love her. - I love it. Now! - Recipe three. Peach guac. I've had guac with mango before, but peach sounds really good to me, so I'm excited to try it. Besides that it's a pretty normal recipe. You've got your typical avocado, lime juice, jalapenos, red onion. It also is our first recipe of the day with jalapeno. Which is kind of crazy to me. It's like an integral part, I feel like. My perfect guac has to be spicy. Without it, it can just taste a little flat. So, our next recipe we're grilling our avocados. So, we're putting the avocado straight on the grill, until it gets a little bit charred. I'm really, really stoked to see how this turns out because I feel like some smokey flavor could be really nice with our guac. And then we'll mash it up, proceed as usual. Recipe number five comes from the New York Times via this restaurant in New York called ABC Cocina that makes a green pea guacamole. - [Man] That's nasty. - I've always wanted to try this recipe because it sounds crazy. It's a lot more difficult than your average guac recipe. You have to use a food processor, which is like, one of the great things about guac is that you don't need any special equipment. So, I'm already a little salty at this recipe, but I'm gonna try it. Starting with blanching the peas. I just put this jalapeno under the broiler and got it super duper charred. It's been sitting covered under plastic wrap for 15 minutes, just to sort of allow the skin to steam and be easier to release. We're just peeling off all that charred bit and leaving the nice cooked jalapeno below. I just put the peas in the ice bath to stop the cooking so they wouldn't get too mushy and overcooked. Going in to our food processor. Roasted jalapeno, fresh jalapeno, cilantro, salt. I feel like I'm making baby food right now. This recipe got a lot of attention, Obama tweeted, "I don't want peas in my guac." The New York Times was never the same. I think once Obama throws shade at you, you're just over. - Obama out. - So these are five guacamole's that we are trying today. - Okay, Beyonce. - [Lena] Beyonce, very classic. - It looks the most loose, almost watery. - But it looks like the most classic, homemade normal guac. - [Lena] Yeah. - [Woman In Jean Jacket] I think that it could go a little harder on the lime. - [Lena] Harder, mhm. - [Woman In Jean Jacket] But I'm like... - [Woman In Middle] It's still pretty fatty. - [Black Haired Woman] Yeah. - That's like a 6.57. - Yeah, yeah, its passable. You guys might already be familiar with Chrissy's recipe, but it uses cheddar cheese. - [Woman In Middle] Ready. It's spicier, which I like. - There is a lot of cumin, cheese just doesn't belong. - Lime juice plus cheese, not a good... - No, I like the spice level but the cheese, just I can't, I can't. - But I think if this one could have a little more spice, just to oomph it up, this one is probably better than this one for me. - Do you guys put tomatoes in your guac? Do you like tomatoes in guac? - I think I like it. - I like tomatoes in guac but when I'm normally making guac it's like, "Oh, let me just throw some stuff together "really fast." And I normally don't add tomatoes but I do like it. - All right, let me try the peach. - I got excited because I thought those were mangoes when I first saw them. - It's not as bad as I thought. - I would want the skin peeled. - Grilled. So this has been sitting out for a while. So, it's pretty much at room temperature but when I first pulled it off it was very... - [Woman In Middle] Do you want it to be warm? - [Lena] I don't think I would want it to be warm. - [Woman In Middle] Because I don't think I would, either. - I don't know how I feel about warm avocados. Okay but actually, I like it. - I kind of like it too. - This is my favorite. - It's got the cleanest avocado taste. I could almost go for more grill. Just keep grilling all this stuff, right? - Also, acid. - I was gonna say, yeah, it still needs a little more lime juice or something but other than that, it's really good. - Any peppers? Jalapenos? - Yeah, there's some jalapenos. - [Woman In Middle] I just want more spice and more acid. - [Lena] More spice, more acid. - [Woman In Middle] Yeah, I'm a fan. - Maybe I grill the jalapeno too but not the onion? I feel like the onion needs to be fresh. Finally, we'll understand what everyone was so angry about. - [Woman In Jean Jacket] I'm so upset about this. - It's not guac. It tastes a little like baby food. - Yeah, also really sweet. - It kind of heightens the jalapenos fruitiness a little bit which is very interesting. I also see sunflower seeds in here? - Yes, for garnish only. - Okay, I actually like this, quite a bit. I wouldn't say it's my favorite but it's different and it's quite refreshing for a guacamole. - It's light. - Yes. This one is great, it has solid avocado flavor. - This is like, "Serve this to me at a fancy restaurant." But this is what I would make and serve to people. - Great, thank you guys so much! Lots to think about! - Bye! - Ready for round two? Five more recipes. This time around I'm really intrigued. There's a lot of recipes online incorporating various types of dairy into guac, which I know sounds kind of intense but we have a dip on Delish that's like a spinach artichoke avocado dip with cream cheese that's really, really good. So, I'm trying a batch with cream cheese. I'm trying a batch with low fat Greek yogurt, love me some yogurt. And a batch with mayonnaise. And also I saw a couple little interesting flavor add-ins online that I wanted to try. Worcestershire sauce and we have tequila. (hums "Tequila" by The Champs) ♪ Tequila ♪ Let's do it! I think we should just start with the one I'm most nervous about which is the mayo. I'm a recent convert to mayonnaise and now all of a sudden I'm like, "It kind of makes everything taste good, right?" I worry that mayo and avocado are super similar, super fatty and I'm just wondering if it's gonna be too much but there's nothing to it but to do it. It's heavy, it's really heavy. It's not bad. You cannot do a big scoop and feel good about it. Just too much fat on fat, I think. I understand the idea of why people would like it, it is super creamy and smooth. It's just a bit too much. Yogurt, on the other hand, much less fat. Maybe I will like it more. Also nice, actually. Much nicer than the mayo. It is a little distracting, the flavor, the Greek yogurt has a certain astringency to it. Kind of takes away from the avocado. It's good, it doesn't feel guac, to me. Last dairy heavy one. Cream cheese. Sort of similarly to the yogurt, there's a nice tang that comes from the cream cheese but I again just sort of worry about it sitting like a lump in your stomach. It's very heavy. It's pretty intense, it does taste good, I will say. Cream cheese is delicious and once again, anything it touches makes it taste better. Might be a little hard to snack on something that intense. Worcestershire sauce, did I say it right? A little bit like malty, salty and malty. I kind of like it but it also just steers us away from a classic, brightly, limey, citrusy, herby flavor. It's got something to it, though. I do kind of like it. I'm scared the texture doesn't look too good. ♪ Wow, wow, wow ♪ It's interesting. If you really love the taste of tequila, it's not a bad idea but it gives you that hit in the back of your throat. To summarize this round, I don't think I really loved any of these. If you're gonna add some dairy to your guacamole I would choose something with more tang like yogurt or cream cheese but realize, that that addition is gonna make it pretty heavy. From what I have gathered from the tests of the day are that adding more fat, not so good. But adding a little smokey flavor via charring, very good. First I'm gonna pre-heat my grill pan to medium heat. Cut open my avocados and put them cut side down, on to my grill pan along with two whole jalapenos and two garlic cloves with the skin still on. I'm turning the jalapenos occasionally along with the garlic cloves just to get them nice and charred. And as soon as the avocados have a nice char marks and the peppers and garlic are tender, I'm gonna just take them out. We'll scoop our charred avocado into a bowl along with our garlic, which we will peel, and we'll mash them together. Add in some lime juice, with the jalapenos we're gonna take the stems off, cut them open, take out the seeds, and then flip them over and scrape off some of the darker browned bits from the skin. Chop those up, add them to the bowl with the avocado and garlic and then we're just adding some cilantro, onions, and some tomatoes. Stir it all together, seasoning with salt and good to go. I'm tasting it one more time, just to make sure it's all good. It's really good, very avocado forward if you're into that kind of thing. The onions lend a really good crunch, very crucial part. A little heat from the jalapenos, lots of freshness from the herbs and the tomato. It's my ideal. - This is so good, Lena. - [Lena] I'm so glad you like it! - I'm getting chips all over myself. - I like the lime flavor. - This is the kind of guac that you just don't walk away from. You all know what I'm talking about. - Thanks, guys. Really appreciate you guys eating some guac. - It's very good. - Thanks! - Can I keep it? - Yeah! What do you put in your guac? I would love to hear. Put it in the comments below.

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