?Avo-tartare?

Since I posted “The Herb Popper” yesterday (for “The Hurt Locker”), I thought it only fitting to follow it up with our dish for “Avatar” – “Avo-tartare”.  This was one of the first titles that we figured out, and I knew it would be easy enough to either find a recipe that worked, or to just make one up.  I looked online and found several recipes that were basically avocado salsa with things like black beans, corn and lots of seasonings. While those sound really good,  I wanted to keep this simple and feature the avocado, rather than having it compete with lots of other flavors.

I bought some pre-sliced mango at Trader Joe’s and diced up the slices, then did the same with the avocado (I used about 4 I think).  I minced about half of a small red onion and tossed that in, and then I added salt, tons of lime juice, and maybe a couple tablespoons of chopped cilantro.  Since I wasn’t using a recipe I just kept tasting to make sure the seasoning was right.  Not because I kept wanting to eat it, just, you know, for testing.

This was nice and light, but still a little bit rich from the avocado.  It worked well to balance out the other dishes we served, and I’ll definitely make it again as an alternative to regular salsa or guacamole.  You can throw in whatever else sounds good to you, or add more mango or avocado to suit your taste.  You’ll want to make this the same day you serve it.  Even though the lime juice helps to slow the oxidation of the avocado, you probably don’t want to risk it by making it too far in advance.