Monday 4 October 2010

Good Hass Keeping

Our Tweet-a-long avocado demonstration takes place on a busy London Street during the evening of October 26th, during Avocado Week.

Thomasina Miers will carry out the demonstration and ask passers by to sample the recipe – a simple avocado dish.

Suffice to say the time of day and of the year we’re doing this pretty much guarantees that not only will it be dark, it is very likely to be cold and wet as well. However, the beauty of a Twit-a-long is that you follow along on Twitter from the comfort or your sofa/desk/wherever else you happen to be. You don’t actually have to be there.

Ingredients and recipe will be announced on these pages before the day, which brings me onto a few house-keeping rules, that will help ensure your avocados are in perfect shape if you’re planning to follow the demonstration as it happens. Hass-keeping rules if you like…

First, make sure your Hass avocado is perfectly ripe, squeeze gently in the palm of your hand. Ready-to-eat fruit will be firm, yet yield to gentle pressure.

If you need to speed up the ripening process, place a hard avocado in a paper bag with a banana or kiwifruit. This will make an avocado ripen faster.

Once ripe, an avocado will keep for two to three days in the fridge – this will prevent it from over-ripening.

However, on no accounts keep a hard avocado in the fridge. It will never ripen!

If you want to hone your avocado prep skills in advance, here is the perfect way to prepare an avo.

1.Cut it lengthways all the way around, working around the stone, and gently twist the two halves apart

2. Tap the blade of a knife into the stone, twist gently to release from the flesh - or scoop out with a spoon, as shown here

3. To skin and slice the fruit, place the halves face down and peel off the skin.

4. If the skin won't to peel easily, use a knife to score into strips you can peel off

Get practising now!

Oh, and to prevent the flesh of an avocado discolouring, brush with lemon, lime or orange juice if you don’t plan to eat it immediately

2 comments:

  1. We can't wait for the Avocado Demo, and no matter what the weather throws at us, we'll be there!

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  2. I'm sorry, I can't agree with your skinning tips...too fiddly.

    It's a spoon n scoop jobbie IMO.

    Keep up the good work, avocado fiends! Great site.

    ReplyDelete