“Some people like to flirt with the subject of cooking,” Delia writes at the beginning of the chapter called The Serious Cook’s Storecupboard, “but everyone knows the difference between a flirtation and a serious relationship: at some point flirtation stops and some kind of commitment begins”.
Just as, eventually, you move on from “just seeing” someone to having a joint bank account and suppressed recriminations, a serious cook, Delia says, moves from living hand to mouth as far as spices and ingredients are concerned, to a stable of well-loved favourites – a serious storecupboard.
She doesn’t add – perhaps because it would be a little dark – that just as relationships can go sour, so too must the serious cook occasionally clear out their cupboards. Eventually they realise they simply aren’t the kind of person who makes curry at home anymore, before sadly telling an aged packet of garam masala that it’s not them, it’s you.
But happily, a serious cook’s storecupboard can sometimes welcome new arrivals (although this can be bad news for the existing inhabitants. Since Delia taught me how to bake bread, I haven’t bought a loaf, but accommodating the extra flour means there is nowhere to put our condiments, which means that occasionally, when I open the boiler cupboard, I have to duck to avoid a falling jar of pesto). I don’t know yet what I will have to displace from our fruit bowl to accommodate the extra avocados I will need to buy now that Delia’s taught me to make guacamole, but it doesn’t look good for the kumquats.
Delia’s recipe for guacamole is so easy – and the resulting guacamole so delicious – that for a while, I had no plan as to how to fill the rest of this column other than to make increasingly strained jokes about the fact she describes it as “Mexican guacamole”. (As opposed to what, Chinese guacamole? Dutch guacamole?) Just put peeled tomatoes, a garlic clove, avocados and red onions into the processor, and you’re done.
Really, the only margin for error is in the food processor. The authentic way to mash the guacamole is by hand, or fork. (Unless, that is, you are making Russian guacamole, in which case you force a Ukrainian to mash it for you.) Delia sensibly eschews hand-mashed guacamole in favour of a food processor, which can result in a guacamole that tastes right, but doesn’t quite have the right texture if you don’t time it well.
I like the odd chunk of avocado left in there, and I found just five seconds in the processor was enough for that. If you want your guacamole smooth and spreadable, then add an extra few seconds. But it’s very much trial and error, and the warm glow at getting it to a texture you like will dissipate pretty quickly when your partner frowns and suggests putting it back in the blender for a bit longer.
That done, congratulations: you can now make a guacamole that should be the envy of any restaurant. Good luck working out where to keep those avocados, though.
- Stephen Bush’s task is to cook his way through Delia’s Complete How To Cook (BBC Books, £40) in a year. You can watch Delia Smith’s free Online Cookery School videos at deliaonline.com; @deliaonline
- Stephen Bush is a writer and columnist for the New Statesman @stephenkb
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