How To

Buying, Choosing & Cutting Avocado


Avocado
Before this year avocado is a foreign fruit to me. I have read & heard a great deal of goodness about this fruit (lower our LDL ‘bad’ cholesterol & increase our HDL ‘good’ cholesterol levels) but I never came close to buying & eating it. One reason is because we don’t grow avocado in Malaysia. They’re imported and hence quite pricey. At RM5.99 per piece, I prefer to eat local homegrown fruits.

With the many on-going competition amongst hypermarkets in Malaysia, the price war has thankfully reduce the prices of many daily food staples. We can get avocado at RM1.99 and sometimes even RM0.99 per piece!!! And thanks to my mom’s interest in this pear-shaped fruits, I too started to experiment with avocado.

Before sharing several of my favorite avocado recipes in the next few posts, let me first show you how to choose & cut an avocado.

Buying & Choosing Avocado:
We normally get unripe avocados from hypermarkets like Giants & Tesco in dozens (because they’re so cheap!). We get the unripe ones and let the avocados ripen by itself with ample time to eat & wait in between. Sounds good?

To check for ripeness, press avocado lightly with your thumb. If it’s hard the avocado is unripe, soft and the avocado is ripe.

Cutting Avocado:
My first time cutting an avocado resulted in blood & bandage! Hahaha 😀 Sure I can laugh now but it was very painful then. I banished avocado for several weeks!

Important note to virgin avocado cutter: Read how to cut an avocado before attempt one yourself.

Here’s how… (hey I’m a pro now)

Choose a ripe avocado.

How To Cut Avocado
With one hand holding the avocado take a sharp knife in the other and cut the avocado into half deep (blocked by avocado seed).

How To Cut Avocado
Stand the avocado and continue cutting.

How To Cut Avocado
Turn the avocado to the other side and cut the other half as well. Now you can lift the knife.

How To Cut Avocado
With both hands, one holding the first half and the other hand on the second half of cut avocado…

How To Cut Avocado
Twist ’em like you would opening a jar or a bottle.

How To Cut Avocado
Wah la you get your beautifully cut avocado.

How To Remove Avocado Seed
There are 2 ways to remove the seed. One is very gruesome that involve axing the seed with the knife. I choose the later which is less dramatic and much more safer. Use a spoon milady and scoop the seed out.

How To Scoop Avocado
Use the same spoon and scoop the avocado flesh. You can then dice or smash the avocado depending what the recipes calls for.

Have fun with your first trial!

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11 Comments

  • Reply Cheryl September 22, 2011 at 1:04 am

    Guess what?! My granpa left us an avocado tree. It has gave birth to almost 20 organic avocados and they taste really good.too bad i could not upload the picture for u. My grandpa stay in a padi field village in Kedah, Malaysia.

    • Reply Che-Cheh September 22, 2011 at 9:51 am

      That’s cool. Wow. Can you send to my email address? I wanna have a look at the avocado trees. It’s checheh [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks!

  • Reply Lia September 6, 2013 at 7:38 pm

    Why why….In Sarawak where my town is there is no competition of hypermarts and ONE PIECE of avocado (australian) costs me RM5.69.. This is so sad…And thats at Giant’s only. If you know where I can get cheap avocados here, please tell me..Thanks for this information

    • Reply Che-Cheh September 6, 2013 at 9:44 pm

      Hi Lia, maybe you can try finding local farmer that grow avocado. Over here it’s expensive too except when they are in season, then they are cheaper.

      • Reply Lia September 7, 2013 at 6:27 pm

        Okay..I think I will have to search the central market at my town

      • Reply Lia September 7, 2013 at 6:30 pm

        Oh ya Che-Cheh whilst searching some info I saw this http://blog.sarawaktourism.com/2012/03/what-isbuah-engkalak.html
        Seems like a local avocado variant??

        • Reply Che-Cheh September 8, 2013 at 2:09 pm

          Hi Lia, this is my first time hearing about buah engkalak therefore I’m not sure if it’s a local avocado variant. Maybe you can buy some and try it and let us know. 🙂 It’ll be a good experiment.

  • Reply syashi November 5, 2013 at 12:50 pm

    Where can buy avocado fruit in KL? Tq.

    • Reply Che-Cheh November 5, 2013 at 4:21 pm

      Hi Syashi, you can buy from any supermarket e.g. Aeon, Jaya Grocer, Isetan, etc.

  • Reply Lis February 23, 2016 at 11:01 pm

    Some parts of sabah do grow avocado, rm2 each!

    • Reply Che-Cheh February 24, 2016 at 10:17 am

      Hi Lis, wow… only RM2. I can eat them daily with that price. Thanks for the tip. 🙂

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