Author: Chef Pati Jinich
I go through hundreds and hundreds of avocados every year taping my show and cooking for my family. Safe to say I cut into a couple thousand or more annually!
If you also like to slice and dice them for taco toppings and smoothies and more, you may have a favorite way to get past that bumpy green exterior to the good stuff inside. But I’d love to show you one easy, reliable way to cut into everyone’s favorite fruit from Mexico. It’s a method I recently showed my youngest son, Juju.
My three sons watch us tape “Pati’s Mexican Table” in my home kitchen, and they’ve all tried their hand at cooking on their own. But my youngest, Juju, eats more avocados a week than all of us combined and has become the most familiar with how to cut and de-pit an avocado. This guy has some kitchen skills and really enjoys the process. In fact, I almost fainted when he told me he’d rather stay home and practice cooking with me this summer than go off to camp. What fun we’re going to have!
I still don’t let him take hot dishes out of the oven, but he’s getting pretty independent. He makes quite a few cookies and cakes and performs some important tasks — among them, whipping up the batters and cutting his beloved avocados.
Before he even gets out the knife, I’ve taught him how to choose the freshest, ripest avocado by holding it in his palm and giving it a gentle squeeze. He knows which one to grab from the bowl we keep on our kitchen counter and if needed, he also knows how to speed up the ripening process by placing an avocado that is hard in a brown paper sack along with a banana and checking on it the next couple of days. It may go without saying but avocados are actually easier to cut when they’re ripe!
After Juju has grabbed the perfect avocado, I’ve taught him to follow these steps:
There you go! Beautiful, fresh avocado to use any way you’d like! Whether it’s for a skewer with avocado, tomato and mozzarella and a balsamic dipping sauce, a smoothie, or guacamole , you’ll be all set to enjoy. Eat super yummy stuff, have fun and be safe.