There is no such thing as “authentic guacamole.” You can add lime juice or tomatoes, you can sprinkle toasted peanuts on top, fold in cilantro pesto, add seafood, make it light and creamy or make it thick and chunky. As with every recipe on the planet, every town and every household will do a recipe differently, from hummus to pad Thai to three-cup chicken. Please don’t shoot the messenger.

So, during a recent trip to Mexico City, I went from place to place trying out different versions of guacamole—no two were the same—which got me thinking about the essence of Mexican cuisine. One of the hallmarks is charring chilies and vegetables so why not here? Avocados can be bland so perhaps a bit of charring is in order.

For this recipe, we pulled out all the stops, and charred not only the onion, the chilies and the tomatillos, but also charred the halved avocados still in their skin (to hold them together). We used a cast-iron skillet, but you could also do this on a grill, a comal, or a griddle.

Once charred, the ingredients need to be cooled before mashing. We also add lime juice and cilantro at the end. Finally, we finished the guacamole with something totally inauthentic, an optional sprinkling of chili powder. Well, nobody’s perfect.

The takeaway is, much like hummus, there is no one right way. Although I am known for saying, “Follow the bloody recipe!” this is a case where you can step up and improvise all you like. Nobody I know is going to yell at you for being inauthentic.

Chris Kimball

Christopher Kimball is founder of Milk Street, which produces Milk Street Magazine, Milk Street Television on PBS, and the weekly public radio show Milk Street Radio. He founded Cook’s Magazine in 1980 and was host and executive producer of America’s Test Kitchen until 2016. Kimball is the author of several books, including "The Yellow Farmhouse" and "Fannie’s Last Supper."