Avocados
Flavour Profile
Rich, buttery and subtly nutty with a grassy finish. Because of their high fat content, avocados act as a neutral canvas that carries other bold flavours like lime, chilli and salt.
Health Benefits
Avocados are mostly good fats — the kind that are sensible for your heart. And a fair bit of potassium, which keeps your nerves ticking over and your blood pressure in check. Don't overthink it; just eat the damn things.
Buying Tips
Choose avocados that feel heavy for their size. Give them a gentle squeeze in the palm of your hand rather than poking with your thumb, which causes bruising.
If it yields to gentle pressure in the palm of your hand, it’s ready. If the little stem nub comes away easily and reveals green underneath, that’s another good sign.
Storage
Keep rock-hard avocados on the counter to ripen. Once they are soft, move them to the fridge to hit the pause button on the ripening process.
To stop a cut avocado from browning, squeeze over some lemon juice or press cling film directly onto the green flesh to block out the oxygen.
Cooking Uses
Best served raw to preserve that delicate fat. Smash it on toast, slice it into salads, or blend it into a dressing.
If you must cook it, keep the heat quick and light. Grilled avocado halves are great, but overcooking them can turn the flesh bitter.
Forkin Food Theory
Avocados are sometimes described as a "biological anachronism". One theory suggests their massive stone made more sense when giant mammals, including now-extinct ground sloths, could eat the fruit and disperse the seed. Those animals disappeared thousands of years ago, but avocados survived, eventually helped along by humans cultivating and spreading them. That oversized stone may be a leftover from a very different world.
Wild & Wonderful
That massive stone has a hidden trick. Avocado stones can produce a natural dye ranging from soft pink and peach to rusty orange and reddish tones. The colour develops from compounds in the stone during extraction and oxidation, so that big lump in the middle isn’t quite as useless as it looks. Keep an unripe avocado in a paper bag with a banana to speed up ripening. Slow a ripe one down in the fridge.