An avocado a day keeps the doctor away.
The superfood of the month – have you already read the month of August? – is the most photographed exotic fruit on social media, loved by sportsmen and bloggers: the avocado!
From the botanical point of view, the avocado fruit is a drupe – like peach, apricot, cherry, olive and coconut – although it is mainly used to flavor savory dishes.
The avocado is not only delicious but it is also versatile and rich in properties that make it unique: just think that if you take 100g you will get about 160 calories that provide fiber, B vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K potassium, zinc and phosphorus, useful substances to keep the heart healthy, to increase the sense of satiety and reduce cardiovascular problems.
Despite the considerable intake of calories, the avocado is not fattening because they are all good fats, able to quickly rebalance the level of “bad” cholesterol in the blood. It is also an unlimited source of vitamin A, useful for sight, vitamins B2, for growth and general well-being. Its consumption is particularly recommended for those who follow a vegetarian diet.
It looks like it’s a Super Superfood!
How to recognize a good avocado?
To recognize a good avocado, we must not only dwell on the color of the skin but also on its softness. Gently press the wrinkled skin: if it seems very hard to crush, then it is not yet ripe. This happens because the avocado is not a fruit that ripens directly on the plant, unlike other types of product, but it becomes it only after being picked from the tree. In this case it will be sufficient to wait 2-3 days, keeping it in a brown paper bag next to an apple, banana or kiwi, in order to speed up the maturation. Be careful not to put an unripe avocado in the fridge, unless you want in that way for several days!
Instead, if the peel yields slightly, but leaves no imprint, it means that the time has come to taste it!
Otherwise, if your finger leaves a slight furrow, it means that the maturation is already in a more advanced state. You can buy it but it will have specific uses for certain recipes.
In nature there is not only one type of avocado but numerous varieties, even hundreds, even if the most cultivated and popular are about ten. Certainly the most widespread and tasty are the Fuerte and the Hass and the difference is noticed when the fruit is ripe: the Fuerte keeps the green skin, while the Hass, turns brown or black.
How to use the avocado on the table?
The avocado on the table is good at any time of day: for breakfast, cut into slices on toast with scrambled or poached eggs, in full U.S.A. Style; for lunch cut into logs on mixed salads and for dinner accompanied by a seared salmon or tuna fillet.
If, instead, you prefer it in its purity, cut it in half and season it with oil, salt and lemon juice. It can also be used as a vegan substitute for butter for cakes, biscuits and desserts and to prepare delicious sushi rolls.
For snacks you can try blending to get good and tasty smoothies, or in its most famous variant, the guacamole, or a Mexican sauce with lime and pepper, to eat with tortillas or croutons.
SKIN IV offers you a particular and tantalizing variation of the original recipe: the guacamole with olives.
RECIPE GUACAMOLE WITH OLIVES
To prepare the guacamole sauce with olives you will need:
- 2 or 3 soft and ripe avocados
- 2 cloves of garlic
- the juice of 1 lemon
- a little extra virgin olive oil
- salt
- a bunch of black olives.
Method
- Divide the ripe avocado in its length in half and remove the core.
- Cut it into small pieces and add lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil.
- Finely chop the garlic cloves and the olives and add everything to the avocado: at this point start crushing it until it becomes a smooth and composed sauce.
- Decorate the sauce with whole olives and accompany this recipe with corn tortillas, crackers or croutons.
And you, do you have other variants to propose?
