Mango Pomegranate Guacamole

It seems that most of my best menu planning recently has spontaneously occurred while stretching after spin class.  I'm not sure why that is, but it seems that everytime I go to spin class on Sunday afternoon I come home with a bunch of new ideas for dinner and/or lunch.  For example, the Char Siu Noodle Soup that I made last weekend and the Sping Chicken Soup with Matzo Balls were both post-spin class ideas, as were this guacamole and the red snapper tacos that I served it with.  As I was sprawled on the rubber mat at Equinox yesterday I kept thinking about the number of avocados (4) we had in the apartment.  I bought the avocados for a salad we made a few days ago and we had a ton left that I didn't want to go to waste.  The logical conclusion was that we needed to make some guacamole.  I already had a recipe in mind for Sunday lunch, but I decided to scrap it (or save it for dinner) and make some guacamole instead.  The guacamole that immediately came to mind was a version we had at La Condesa in Austin, Texas that included queso fresco, pomegranate molasses and pomegranate seeds.  It sounded like an odd combination but it was really tasty.  And then I thought, ok, let's make some guacamole with pomegranate seeds and serve it with fish tacos (more on the tacos later).  Since we had a bunch of mangos left over in the apartment from a recent trip to Whole Foods, I decided that I would make a mango salsa to serve with the fish tacos.  Then I stumbled across this recipe and decided that rather than make a mango salsa for the tacos and a pomegranate guacamole for the appetizer, why not make a mango, pomegranate guacamole and kill two birds with one stone?  Perfect!

I think that this guacamole was a fun variation on traditional guacamole.  I liked the bursts of sweetness from the mango and the pomegranate seeds.  Alex can't make homemade guacamole without a pinch of ground cumin (it's kind of his thing) so he threw some in while I was putting together the fish tacos.  I still think that the pomegranate guacamole we had at La Condesa was better so the next time I start jonesing for some pomegranate guacamole I will try to recreate that one.  But if I were to have people over and offer up a guacamole and salsa bar with several versions of each (maybe for Cinco de Mayo), this one was totally interesting enough make the line up.

Recipe after the jump!

Spicy Rainbow Papaya Salad

Alex and I had friends over for dinner and we decided to make an Asian-themed dinner.  So I said we should make short ribs rendang and coconut rice (a la Fatty Crab) and then left Alex to come up with a side dish.  And his suggestion was green papaya salad.  He even found me the recipe for Spicy Green Papaya Salad that Zak Pelaccio (the chef at Fatty Crab, Cabrito and Fatty Cue) had published in Food & Wine.  So on our grand shopping trip in Chinatown this morning we hit several grocery stores looking for green papayas.  And we found nothing.  Actually, we found some little papayas at the grocery store on East Broadway down under the bridge (the grocery store is literally under the bridge), but you had to buy an entire $16 box of papayas, rather than buying them individually.  No thanks.  Luckily when I hit Fairway later this afternoon to find short ribs they happened to have papaya.  So I found what looked like the most unripe papaya with the greenest skin and bought it.  I was so proud of myself too.  And then I got home and went to cut it open and the papaya was bright orange inside, but still clearly unripe.  So I guess I got 50% right?  Maybe the $16 box of papayas down in Chinatown was green?  Who knows.  And at that point I figured what the heck.  We could make a rainbow papaya salad rather than a green papaya salad.  

I love the spicy lime dressing for this salad.  Combined with the sweetness of the mango and papaya (even though both were unripe, or just verging on ripe), and the cilantro and mint it was such a fresh and delicious combination.  One of my favorite things about Thai and Vietnamese food is the combination of spicy, sweet, and sour flavors all in the same dish and this salad was the perfect example of that flavor combo.

Recipe after the jump!