Just when you thought you could sound the "all clear" horn after weekends of watching football, culminating in Superbowl Sunday, along comes March Madness, the NCAA college basketball tournament. If you are not familiar with this phenomenon, my two boys would be more than happy to educate you on the finer points of filling out a bracket, checking the status of your bracket online, and talking smack to other bracket aficionados. (Seriously, if I had a dollar for every time I heard the word "bracket" in the past week...)
For those of us who are sports lovers, it is an exciting tournament to watch - college "phenoms" battling it out to attain the glory that the championship brings. However, for those who care about March Madness as much as I care about what Lindsay Lohan wore to her last court appearance, this sporting event is just another excuse to cook and indulge in game day snacks. At the top of the heap, of course, is guacamole. If you are going to be making pounds of guacamole for the sports fans in your house, you will need to know how to quickly and efficiently prepare an avocado. How do you get the pit out and the skin off without mangling the tender fruit?
How to cut avocado:
Place the knife on a cutting board and hold gently with one hand. Insert the knife at the base of the avocado and slowly rotate the avocado until it is cut all around the pit.
Holding gently with your fingertips, twist the top half of the avocado until it separates from the bottom half.
Carefully chop the heel of a chef's knife into the avocado pit. Twist the pit until it comes loose. Remove and discard the pit.
Now, you can separate the fruit from the skin in one of two ways. Using the first method (left-hand photo), insert a small spoon between the fruit and the skin, gently working the skin away from the fruit. Carefully lift the fruit out of the skin.
In the second method (right-hand photo), hold the skin between your thumb and the flat side of the knife blade. Peel off the skin in strips. This works particularly well with an avocado that is slightly underripe. If the avocado is ripe, you will be cutting the skin away from the fruit, rather than peeling off the skin.
To prepare the avocado for dishes such as salads, sandwiches and wrapped Mexican dishes (i.e., burritos), cut the avocado in lengthwise slices. If you prefer chunks, or will be mashing the avocado into guacamole, cut the strips crosswise into cubes.
Recipes using avocado:
Cookin' Canuck's Poached Eggs on Toast with Chipotle Mayo, Bacon & Avocado
Cookin' Canuck's Spinach Salad with Chicken, Orange & Avocado
Cookin' Canuck's Spinach Salad with Persimmon, Jicama & Avocado, & Miso Dresing
Kalyn's Kitchen's Cucumber & Avocado Salad with Lime, Mint & Feta
What's Gaby Cooking's The Best Guacamole
The Perfect Pantry's Shrimp & Avocado Quesadillas
Dine & Dish's Avocado Fries
Tamara
To make it just a little easier, score the half of the avocado into squares the same way you do in your mango post and then spoon out the half. The pieces will come out already in cubes with no mess.
Amanda
Love this! I am bookmarking this page... Can't wait to try all these avocado recipes! 🙂
Jenny Flake
Love these tutorials Dara! ....I have an obsession with avocados 🙂 Happy Friday!
Kristi Rimkus
Great demonstration. We are big avocado fans in this house. It's such a healthy fat with great flavor.
Kristi
ceecee
Great instructions Dara. I usually just divide the avacado in half, de-pit and then make horizontal and vertical cuts into the avocado (not through the skin), and then scoop it out with a spoon.
Dara (Cookin' Canuck)
Ceecee, that method works too. Do whatever is easiest for you - slicing before or after scooping.
Victoria
Great tutorial! Somehow I had managed to come up with most of these steps on my own, but getting the pit out with the knife is brilliant... I usually just hack it out with the spoon which doesn't usually matter with guacamole, but next time I need to make a prettier presentation I will definitely try that trick!
(I also second (or third) a mango tutorial... my fingers have had so many near-misses trying to prepare those suckers, they will thank you for it!!)
A Canadian Foodie
You are creating a very straightforward, simple and much needed database for young inexperienced and beginning cooks to refer to. Bravo! I know from being in the classroom with my students that these kinds of tutorials will be invaluable to so many!
🙂
Valerie
Mike
Hi, Dara. I've been following Cookin' Canuck for several months and enoy it very much.
We eat a lot of avocados and if I'm going to be slicing them, I frequently find it easier to peel them after I slice them. Thanks for the tip about using the heel of the knife to remove the pit. I'll definitely try that right away. I usually use the point, which can get messy or scary or both.