Avocado
Persea americana Mill. Family: Lauraceae(Laurels)
Avocado - evergreen, densely branching and a spreading tree up to 10-20m high. Its alternate leaves sit on petioles 1-3 cm long, dark green and slightly shiny on the upper side, matte and whitish or bluish-green on the lower side, lanceolate, ovate or oval, shortly pointed, wedge-shaped at the base, 7-40 long cm and 4-8 cm wide. Small, petalless flowers form lateral and apical inflorescences - branched umbrellas.
Fetus.
The fruits are shaped from pear-shaped to almost round, length reaches more than 30 cm, width 15 cm. The skin of the fruit is green, purple or blackish, shiny, smooth, wrinkled or rough, thin-skinned, rough. The light green, white or yellowish flesh of the fruit has a butter-like consistency, is odorless and has a mild nutty taste.
The pulp comes off easily both from the peel and the pit. The stone is 5-7 cm in size, round or ovoid in shape, hard and light in color.
Usage.
Avocado is ancient cultivated plant , which has been cultivated for thousands of years by the Indians of Central America. Very nutritious, rich in proteins and vegetable fats, the pulp of the fruit (vegetable fat content is about 25%) is eaten raw. When boiled, avocado has a bitter taste. unripe fruits are considered poisonous. After harvesting, avocado fruits should be stored for 1-2 weeks until the skin begins to yield to gentle pressure. To eat, the fruit should be cut or broken and the pit removed. The soft pulp of the fruit is eaten with spoons directly from the peel, after sprinkling with salt or pepper, sprinkling lemon juice or vinegar or any other way of seasoning.
Also popular a savory dish of mashed or diced avocado pulp, which is seasoned with onions, garlic, lemon and pepper, chili or Tabasco and eaten as a condiment or salad. In Southeast Asia and Hawaii, the pulp of the fruit is eaten with sugar or mixed with sweet fruit juice. In America, avocado pulp is sometimes added to ice cream and dairy drinks. When cut, the pulp of the fruit quickly becomes blackish-brown and takes on an unsightly appearance, which does not reduce its value. You can avoid this by sprinkling the cut with lemon juice. Due to its low sugar content, avocado is of great value as a nutritious fruit for diabetics.
From ripe fruits squeeze out, rich in vitamins A, B, C and E, long-lasting vegetable oil, which is used in cosmetic production and can be used as edible oil. The stone contains a milky juice that turns red when exposed to air and is used by Indians as ink and dye for fabrics. The beautiful reddish-brown wood is, among other things, used as construction material, for making furniture, for turning and wood carving.
Spreading.
Avocado tree acclimatized in Central America; With late XVIII V. it is grown throughout the world in areas with tropical, subtropical and Mediterranean climates. Outside of hot countries, avocado appeared as a fruit for sale only a few decades ago and quickly became popular. The main breeding areas are the USA, Mexico, the Caribbean islands, Brazil, Indonesia, New Zealand, Israel and South Africa.
Growing and harvesting.
Unpretentious avocado tree grows well at average annual temperatures above 13 °C; withstands frosts down to -6 "C. Numerous varieties are grown, differing in their ecology, as well as in the shape, color and size of the fruit. Reproduction is carried out by seeds or cuttings; plants are usually grafted. The trees produce their first fruits in the 4-6th year. After 6 -9 months after flowering, ripe but still strong fruits are collected, carefully, trying not to crush or damage them. Overgrown trees, depending on the variety, can produce an annual harvest of 5-20 (100) kg. Avocado fruits at a temperature of 7-19 ° C can be stored for up to 1 month; stronger refrigeration causes damage to the fruit.
We find out what avocado is, what it is eaten with, and what chefs cook with it in Moscow restaurants.
Recently, not only Russia, but the whole world has been experiencing a real avocado boom. And if earlier our compatriots were afraid to even approach the mysterious fruit, now this product is gaining more and more fans. In turn, every restaurant considers it its duty to have a salad, an appetizer, and sometimes a dessert with avocado on the menu. Let's figure out what kind of fruit it is and what its features are.
Vegetable or fruit
The first question that comes to our minds in connection with avocados: is it considered a fruit or a vegetable? Or perhaps a nut? Let us dispel all doubts: avocado is a fruit. In the Western classification, it is given an even more subtle definition: a berry with one seed. This is such an unsweetened and rather fatty berry, which is healthier than many vegetables.
Origin and varieties
Historically, the birthplace of the avocado is South America, and translated from Aztec, the name of the fruit means “male testicle,” hinting at its aphrodisiac properties. Avocado gradually spread throughout the world, and today it is grown in both Asia and South America, and Israel, from where, by the way, most of the fruits are brought to Russia. In chain supermarkets and regular stores in our country, avocados are sold indiscriminately by variety, but the first thing that will probably catch your eye is the Hass avocado, or Haas, as inattentive sellers have dubbed it. This fruit is suitable for guacamole, sauces, spreads: it has a fattier, looser and creamier consistency, so cutting it into cubes for salad will be a little more difficult.
The second option is fruits with skins more light shade: from green to emerald. The skin itself can be either smooth or bumpy. These varieties are great for salads and just beautiful cuts for Instagram photos because they make perfect slices and cubes rather than a puree. Want to try something more unusual? Continue your search in specialized exotic fruit stores, where you can find Brazilian or Thai varieties of giant avocados, which have a fairly dense texture and a very pleasant nutty taste.
Avocado season technically falls between February and September. But this time period is arbitrary, since in fact, in the current market conditions, the season lasts all year round, depending on where the fruit is grown.
Beneficial features
Basic beneficial features avocados are concentrated, oddly enough, in fat: the fruit contains those same monounsaturated fatty acid, which modern doctors, nutritionists and even fitness instructors so actively point out. In this sense, the fruit is useful for blood vessels, and for muscles, and for metabolism, and for maintaining general tone. So a good avocado is equivalent to a piece of salmon or a handful of almonds - the healthiest thing! In addition, for a fruit, avocado is exceptionally rich in plant proteins and heart-healthy potassium. There are also plenty of vitamins A and E in it. The calorie content is not the lowest, of course, but it’s not off the charts either: about 160 kcal per 100 grams is nothing compared to the benefits, and besides, thanks to the presence of healthy fats, avocados will fill you up much better than a couple of apples. So let’s cast aside doubts and include it in our diet!
How to select and store
It’s not always possible to buy a good, juicy, fatty avocado, but it’s still possible even in a local supermarket. First of all, pay attention to the skin: there should be no obvious dark spots on it, it should be intact and undamaged. There is another trick: if you pick off the stalk, you can see the pulp. You should only buy fruit if it is pale green in color. A good avocado feels firm to the touch, just a little soft, but not “woody.” You can check this this way: take the avocado firmly and confidently in one hand, holding it by the sides, and thumb Use your other hand to press lightly onto the skin. If the avocado has reached its proper condition, a small, neat dent will remain on the skin.
However, a little ripe avocado- not such a big problem. The fruits ripen well at home: you just need to let them sit at room temperature for several days. Want to speed up the process? Place the avocado in paper bag or wrap properly in paper towels. For express ripening you can use magical power apples or bananas and add them to the avocado in the bag. By the way, a note to the housewife: the peels of apples and bananas emit a particularly high amount of ethylene, which speeds up the ripening process of vegetables and fruits. So this trick can be done not only with avocados, but also with other unripe fruits.
How to cook
There are quite a few options for preparing avocados. First, when raw, it is added to a salad or any other dish: it adds a delicate texture and nutty flavor. Adepts healthy eating They recommend replacing mayonnaise with avocado puree: it turns out just as fatty and tender, but ten times healthier! Secondly, avocado halves are perfectly grilled: the taste of the fruit changes slightly, acquiring only pleasant aroma smoke. Of course, various sauces, dips and spreads are made from avocados, like Mexican guacamole. Avocado puree is also used for making desserts as a dense and rich base for cheesecakes and pastries or added to mousses.
What to combine with
Classics of the genre are avocados and citrus fruits, such as lime or lemon juice. In addition, fleshy, juicy tomatoes will be an ideal pairing for it. Using the same principle, any sour fruits and vegetables that are strong enough to dilute its noble fat content are selected for avocados. Karen Page's book, The ABC of Taste, beloved by many chefs, offers more interesting combinations, For example:
- Avocado + basil + balsamic vinegar + red onion + tomatoes
- Avocado + chili + cointreau + lime + black pepper + salt + shallots
- Avocado + jalapeño chili + cilantro + cumin + garlic + lime juice + onion
- Avocado + creme fraiche + grapefruit
- Avocado + endive + frisee + lemon juice + sea salt
- Avocado + lemon + smoked trout
Product Description
Avocado- fruit of an evergreen tree persea americana (Persea americana) laurel family (Lavraceae) from tropical America. Also called avocado alligator pear, alligator pear.
Avocado contains at least 11 vitamins and 14 minerals. It contains a lot of vitamin E, the most important antioxidant. The oily pulp of the avocado does not contain heavy fats (all its fats are monosaturated, as in olive oil) and cholesterol. The pulp of a ripe fruit consists of 30% vegetable fats, which nourish and restore tissue cells. Avocado will help you forget about dry skin and restore shine to dull hair. It is useful to eat 1 avocado twice a week, in winter - three times a week (if there are no problems with excess weight).
Types and varieties
Exists three varieties of avocado: Mexican, Guatemalan and West Indian.
U Mexican Avocado fruits are thin-skinned, and the leaves of the tree smell like anise when crushed. This is a cold-resistant crop that does well in the subtropics. U Guatemalan Avocado fruits are large, with thick skin; these trees are more capricious and less cold-resistant. The most tender variety of avocado is West Indian, cultivated mainly in the tropics.
All modern varieties Avocados can be traced back to these three species. For example, varieties cultivated by Russian gardeners mexicola And puebla belong to Mexican, and the variety Fuerte- a hybrid of Mexican and Guatemalan avocados.
In general, in the world There are about 400 varieties of avocados, they vary in shape (round, pear-shaped or oblong), size (from small, the size of a plum, to large, weighing up to a kilogram) and taste of the fruit. The color of the peel can also be different, from light green to black and dark purple. In most cases, avocados either remain green as they ripen or change from green to dark, sometimes even black, when ripe.
The most common varieties that are often found on the shelves of our stores include:
- Gwen (Gwen), with medium or large fruits of a round or slightly oblong shape, dark green lumpy skin and yellow-green flesh that has a slight egg taste;
- Zutano (Zutano), an elongated pear-shaped avocado with a smooth, easily removable green skin, the taste of white or yellowish pulp is a bit like an apple;
- read(Reed), with round or oblong fruits, thick pimply dark green skin and light yellow flesh, taste - with a hint of pear and nut;
- Fuerte (fuerte), a pear-shaped fruit with a smooth shiny skin Green colour and a delicate sweetish creamy taste;
- pinkerton (Pinkerton), fruits are elongated pear-shaped with green rough skin, darkening as they ripen, and yellowish pulp with a delicate sweetish taste;
- Hass (Hass), the most common, the only oval fruit available for sale all year round with a thick, ripe black skin and white or yellowish buttery pulp with a nutty taste;
- bacon (Bacon), with oval juicy fruits, covered with smooth thin dark green skin, the taste is weakly expressed;
- mexicola (Mexicola), a cold-resistant, fairly drought-resistant variety that produces greatest harvest in the conditions of the Caucasus. Fruits weighing up to 100 g, dark purple, almost black when ripe, ripen in late August-September;
- puebla (Puebla), also a cold-resistant plant, in the Gagra region ripens in November-December, has semi-ovoid fruits with dark brown skin, weighing up to 200 g;
- ettinger (Ettinger) It has the shape of a pear with an easily released large pit and soft, melt-in-your-mouth pulp. In Israel, from where avocados of this variety are exported to Russia, Ettinger is the first variety of the season: it ripens by the beginning of autumn (Haas, Fuerte, Pinkerton and Reed ripen later in Israel).
How to cook
To cut an avocado, you need to cut it in a circle along the pit, separate the halves from each other, and remove the pit. Do not cut off the skin - it is easily separated from the pulp with a tablespoon. The thick peel can be used as a salad bowl. To prevent the pulp from darkening, sprinkle it with citrus juice - preferably lime juice.
Avocado is a nutritious and easily digestible product. For those who need a lot of energy during the day to work or, for example, to climb Kilimanjaro, we recommend the popular and popular tall dish: avocado (unpeeled) is cut lengthwise into two halves, the pit is removed, sunflower, olive or melted butter is poured into the hole, pepper and salt are sprinkled thickly and eaten with a spoon.
In the homeland of avocados, Mexico, the most famous and popular avocado dish is guacamole sauce. To make guacamole at home, peel 1 avocado, cut in half and remove the pit. Now peel a small onion and half bell pepper. Place it all in a mixer, add a small chili, tomato, a little salt, a couple of tablespoons of olive or refined sunflower oil, half or a quarter of peeled lemon - and grind coarsely. The resulting sauce is served with corn tortillas, as well as rice and thin steaks.
In Miami they make it from avocados. ice cream. Avocado is mixed with frozen milk mixture and fruit. It turns out wonderful cocktail- milk coffee plus a small amount of cognac or rum. There is a cocktail Fierce Martinacan (Féroce Martiniquais)— with avocado, onion, garlic, parsley, chili pepper and boiled cod. Although this is more like a soup.
By the way, there are quite a lot of avocado soups on the American continent.
If avocados are added to hot dishes, then only at the very end, a couple of minutes before they are ready. If you keep it on the fire longer, the avocado will become bitter. Examples of hot dishes are flour-breaded avocados fried in olive oil; avocado risotto
In Russia greatest number avocado varieties on store shelves - in late autumn - early winter. At this time, Israeli avocados are invariably stocked in stores. However, the matter, of course, is not limited to Israel.
The avocado season from Israel begins in early autumn and continues throughout winter and spring. California avocados are in season all year, while Florida avocados are in season from late fall to late spring. In South Africa, the avocado season begins in April and lasts several months. In South and Central America the seasons are different varieties vary. Ultimately avocado is available all year round.
How to select and store
The fruit should be a uniform color - green, dark green, green-brown or almost black - but always without spots or damage to the skin. But it is difficult to determine ripeness by the color of the pulp. The fact is that avocados come in several varieties, with different flesh - both yellow and light green.
It is better to buy avocados unripe. At home, they will reach perfect condition, but overripe ones have a rancid taste due to rotten fats. To ripen avocados at home, you need to put the fruits in a paper bag or wrap them in paper towels, and then put them in a cool, dark place for 2-4 days. Apples or bananas will help speed up the ripening of avocados. Place avocados and bananas or apples in a paper bag, poke a few holes in it and put it in a dark place.
The best avocados that can be bought in stores are considered Israeli (Ettinger, Haas, Reed, Fuerte, Pinkerton varieties). Good avocados are brought from South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, and Spain. Some experts consider small round avocados with lumpy dark skin to be the most delicious. However, there may be different opinions on this matter.
Avocados darken quite quickly, in which case lemon juice will help. If you only use half an avocado, then the second (with the pit) can be stored for another 1-2 days in the refrigerator, sprinkled with lemon juice and wrapped in plastic wrap.
An avocado seed can be buried in flower pot, and you will grow beautiful evergreen tree with a thick trunk, long branches and very large leaves. The seed is unsuitable for other purposes; it is tasteless and even poisonous.
Avocado is a fruit beloved by many, but it is not always easy to find it, and even more difficult to choose - they often lie on the shelves unripe and hard. And yet this is not a reason to deny yourself pleasure, but just a matter of time and patience. We learned from the owner of the Avocado Point cafe about how to choose avocados, what varieties there are, which ones you should pay attention to and, of course, how an avocado should ripen correctly.
How to choose?
Elina Osipova
owner of the Avocado Point bar chain
The avocado fruit is first and foremost a berry, and the ripeness of any berry is determined by how easily it can be picked from the bush. While we in Russia do not pick avocados from the trees and all the fruits are delivered in a semi-finished state, there are a couple simple ways determine the ripeness of an avocado: softness gives us the first message about ripeness, but we should not rely on this alone, since even a moderately soft one can be unripe, overripe and, worse, rotten inside.
When purchasing, it is important to look at the stalk; it should separate quite easily, but not fall off on its own - this is the first sign that the avocado is rotten. The color of the fruit under the cutting is also important, it should be a confident light yellow, a little greenish, the main thing is not dark, otherwise it will be dark inside.
What varieties are there?
Avocado is the star of fruits, there are hundreds of varieties different forms, sizes, colors, tastes and textures. The most popular and present on the shelves:
"Hass"- black peel, round form and small seed size, delicate oily texture, pulp yellow color and a slightly nutty flavor, perfect for guacamole. “Hass” is also pleasant because it is easy to transport and ripens well, rarely spoiling and turning black. The most reliable variety. Season - all year round, brought from Kenya, Israel, South Africa, Mexico.
"Fuerte"- green peel, elongated shape, the bone is usually small. This variety has a more herbaceous taste, is more unstable in ripening, and the flesh is white-yellow. Season: summer and autumn.
"Ettinger"- thin green peel, drop-shaped, but a very large stone, this is a significant disadvantage of this variety, because the weight of the fruit is quite large - 200–250 grams, there is not much pulp in it, and the stone inside quickly begins to become overgrown with a white coating, which is why the fruit itself loses its taste and turns into a potato. Season from September to January.
"Pinkerton"- pimply skin, small pit, yellower at the pit and lighter at the edges, pear-shaped. The skin peels off easily, like the Hass, but the weight is usually greater. Season - autumn - spring.
There are also more exotic varieties that can be found in markets like Usachevsky and Danilovsky:
Semil 34- very tasty, oval in shape, often similar to a ball, the weight of one fruit is up to a kilogram, and the pure pulp is about 65–70%. It is very important that, despite the fact that the variety is from the hot Dominican Republic, it is frost-resistant, that is, it can be stored for a long time and nothing will harm it. It has several stages of ripening and this changes the taste. The finished “semil” has a fresh, fruity taste, juicy, and can be eaten even just like that, not very good for guacamole, as it will be watery. However, let it overripe slightly, and it will be exactly like “hass”, that is, it will become oily, a nutty taste will appear, and the flesh will turn bright yellow.
"Royal Black Avocado" from Burma and Vietnam. This variety is very similar to the giant “hass”: black dense peel and unusual pulp. The shape of an ideal ball and a small stone, this variety produces the most delicious and beautiful guacamole, as the pulp has a canary yellow color. This variety can occasionally be found on shelves in specialized exotic fruit stores. The season is very short - December - March.
What to do with the unripe?
Finding ripe avocados on the shelves is not always easy - the reality is that most often we buy firm avocados and wait for them to ripen. Question: how to do this faster? There are a lot of videos on the Internet showing how to quickly ripen an avocado: some bake it in foil, others put it with bananas. My method does not guarantee ripening in two hours, but it certainly will not ruin the taste and texture, which, in my opinion, is the most important thing.
