Ted gains inspiration for many of his dishes by traveling often throughout the U.S. and Mexico including rich food regions such as Oaxaca, Veracruz and Puebla. When he’s not experimenting with new flavors and ingredients in Qdoba’s test kitchen, Ted can be found perusing his favorite carniceria, regaling Qdoba guests with stories of his travel adventures or teaching friends and interested strangers how to create their own signature Mexican dishes at home.

Guacamole, invented by the Aztecs centuries ago, was originally a sauce of smashed avocados with chopped tomatoes and onions. These days, Chef Ted (along with thousands of guac lovers everywhere) celebrate the versatility of guacamole by hand-smashing ripe Hass avocados with a variety of traditional and innovative ingredients like bacon and pineapple to match our culture’s ever-changing culinary tastes. Not only fun to make and delicious to eat, guacamole also serves up a variety of healthy nutrients like unsaturated fat (which lowers blood pressure and cholesterol) and vitamins C and E.

 

Following are a few classic and unique recipes that Ted would be happy to share:

(Makes approximately 4 cups)

4 Medium avocados

1 Jalapeño, de-seeded and minced

½ Small red onion, diced

¾ - 1 tsp Salt (to taste)

2 ½ tsp Fresh lime juice (approximately 1 lime)

4 T. Cilantro, chopped

1.     Cut avocados in half, remove seed and scoop pulp in to mixing bowl.

2.     Add lime juice and salt and then gently mash avocados using a large serving spoon guacamole masher. Leave some small chunks of avocado

3.     Rinse diced onions in cold water and thoroughly drain

4.     Add jalapeno, onions and cilantro and blend with mashed avocado

5.     Enjoy!

(Makes 2 cups)                                                   

2 ea  Chipotle Morita Chiles, whole                                                      

2 ea Avocados                                                           
¼ C Sun Dried Tomatoes (Reconstituted if necessary)                                                            
¼ ea Sweet onion, grilled, diced                                                         
1 ea Key lime, juiced                                                               
½  tsp Kosher salt                                                                                                         
1 ea  Small Jicama, peeled, sliced thin
1 pinch            Ground black pepper                                                                    

1.     Place Morita chiles on baking pan or toaster oven pan. 

2.     Place in broiler area of oven or toaster oven just long enough so that they puff up and you can smell the aroma of chiles.  Once they begin to puff you can use tongs to flip them so that they get toasted evenly.

3.     Once evenly toasted, place chiles in bowl of hot tap water and allow them to soak until soft (approximately 10 minutes). 

4.     After soaking de-seed the chiles and dice finely into roughly 1/8” pieces.

5.     Next, cut the avocados in half and score.

6.     Scoop the avocados into a mixing bowl and add chiles, tomatoes, diced onion, key lime juice, salt and pepper and mash ingredients together until you reach the desired consistency.

7.     Serve with jicama slices for dipping.             

4 Medium haas avocados

½ Medium yellow onion

3 Roma tomatoes

2 Serrano chiles

1T. Fresh lime juice

Salt to taste

1.     Halve and de-seed two avocados ( two will be grilled and two fresh).

2.     Cut onion in half, length wise (leave skin on).

3.     Halve and de-seed the roma tomatoes.

4.     Place the avocado halves (face down) tomatoes (skin side down) onions and chiles on to a well-oiled hot grill.

5.     Grill the avocados, tomatoes, onions and chiles until they have pronounced grill marks, remove and allow to cool.

6.     Dice the tomatoes and onion, finely dice the Serrano chiles (remove the seed membrane if you want to calm down the heat level).

7.     Peel, de-seed and scoop out the two reserved avocados in to a mixing bowl, scoop out the grilled avocados and add to the fresh. 

8.  Using a large serving spoon mash the avocados, blend in the tomatoes, onion, chiles and lime juice. Salt to taste.