Recipes Salsa Verde con Aguacate (Green Sauce with Avocado) Be the first to rate & review! The original recipe calls for mashing the ingredients by hand with a mortar and pestle and mixing in the chopped avocado and the cilantro at the end so that they keep their separate character in a coarse-textured sauce. Do it this way or follow an unorthodox approach that Zarela Martinez has grown fond of, pureeing everything together until very smooth in a food processor or blender.Plus: More Appetizer Recipes and Tips By Zarela Martinez Zarela Martinez Facebook Twitter Website Zarela Martinez is a Mexican chef, author, restaurateur, food television host, and product developer. She and her son, celebrity chef Aarón Sánchez, host the podcast Cooking in Mexican from A to Z.Expertise: Mexican regional cuisines.Experience: Mexican-born Zarela Martinez rewrote the story of Mexican cuisine in the U.S. when she opened her game-changing New York City restaurant Zarela in 1987. This legendary dining spot replaced ignorant culinary stereotypes with brilliant, fearless explorations of regional Mexican specialties embedded in their own distinctive contexts. Zarela is the author of Food from My Heart, The Food and Life of Oaxaca, and Zarela's Veracruz, which was also the companion to a 13-part PBS television series. In 2013 she was inducted into the James Beard Foundation's Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America. In the same year, Harvard's Schlesinger Library acquired her unpublished papers, an invaluable documentation of a lifetime dedicated to enlightening food-lovers everywhere about Mexican cuisine and culture. Food & Wine's Editorial Guidelines Updated on November 30, 2015 Print Rate It Share Share Tweet Pin Email Yield: MAKES ABOUT 2 1/2 CUPS Ingredients 2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, or to taste 1 small white onion, coarsely chopped 2 to 3 fresh serrano or jalapeño chilies, coarsely chopped 6 to 8 average-size tomatillos (about 1/ 2 pound), husked and quartered 1 ripe Mexican-type avocado (Hass or Fuerte), halved, pitted and peeled 8 to 10 cilantro sprigs Directions In a food processor, blender or heavy mortar, process or pound the garlic and salt to a paste. Add the onion, chilies and tomatillos; either pulse in the processor to a slightly chunky purée or pound and mash the ingredients together as fine as possible. For a smooth machine-finished purée, add the avocado and the cilantro and process. If using the hand method, chop the avocado fine and mash it into the onion-tomatillo mixture; chop the cilantro leaves and stir in. Or for a compromise version, pour the machine-processed onion-tomatillo mixture into a bowl and mix in the hand-chopped avocado along with the cilantro. Serve as soon as possible, certainly within 1 hour. Rate it Print