by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: January 08, 2009

The avocado is a fruit with a wonderful texture, a delicious, refreshing taste and is also extremely nutritious. It is very versatile in that it can be prepared in a number of ways, with a wide variety of other ingredients. Unfortunately, for some reason, it has an unenviable reputation of being difficult to skin and de-pip. Hopefully, we can below lay that myth to rest.

When selecting an avocado for whatever purpose, choose one that it is just soft to the touch and a dark, almost brown colour. Do not pick a bright green one as such avocados are unripe, will be hard and lacking in flavour and will cause you all sorts of problems when you come to try and remove the skin and stone. They could even lead to an upset stomach.

It is extremely ill-advised to try and remove the skin of an avocado before removing the stone. This would make life unnecessarily difficult. Sit the avocado therefore on its wide bottom on a hard surface and - if you are right-handed - hold it steady with your left hand. Take a sharp knife and cut down through the top of the avocado until you feel the knife encounter the stone. Begin thereafter turning the fruit away from you as you essentially cut round the entire circumference. Lay the knife aside for a moment, grip the fruit in both hands and gently twist until the two halves separate, the stone still embedded in one of them.

Next comes the potentially dangerous bit but by taking the precautions and following the advice I give, all risks should be eliminated. This really is the only way to remove the stone from an avocado without damaging the tender flesh.

Take a thick towel, fold it several times and lay it flat in the palm of your hand, placing the avocado half containing the stone on top. Just as a golfer lines up his swing, subsequently place the sharp blade of the knife on the centre of the stone, touching it and no more. In one fluid movement, raise the knife and bring it down again, moderately firmly, to cut in to and embed itself in the stone. Twist gently and remove the stone.

How we thereafter remove the skin depends largely upon how we intend using the avocado flesh. If we wish the halves to remain intact for such as slicing, we should peel the skin by hand. This should not be at all difficult if the fruit is ripe enough. The alternative method is to scoop the flesh out with a spoon, perhaps if we intend to use it in the likes of guacamole.

In the first instance above, try slicing the avocado and arranging it fan-like, in a circle, around some fresh melon balls. Season with freshly ground black pepper or even a very finely chopped, de-seeded small chilli pepper. If the second skinning method is used, mash the avocado and add some chopped tomato, cucumber and seasoning and serve in the empty skins. Both these ideas make excellent appetizers/starters.

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