Important tips for choosing avocados and tips and tricks for making the unripe fruit soft.
How to pick a ripe avocado
There are wide varieties of this fruit, and they differ from each other in one way or another. We will tell you the main signs to look for when choosing any avocado.
1. Touch an avocado
One of the most reliable signs of ripeness is the softness of the fruit. A ripe avocado should yield to pressure.
To avoid damaging the flesh, press on the fruit with your fingertips or the palm of your hand rather than with your fingertips.
The fruit is obviously unripe if it is hard as a rock. If the avocado is too soft, and mushy on the inside, it is overripe and probably has gone bad.
2. Look closely at the attachment point of the stalk.
Another very important aspect in choosing a good fruit.
Remove the stalk and look at the mark underneath. A ripe avocado will have a yellowish or light brown mark. An unripe fruit will have a light green spot, and an overripe fruit will have a darker spot.
If there is mold under the cuttings, the avocado has gone bad, so you should definitely not take it.
3. pay attention to the color and condition of the skin
Avocado is usually ripe if it has a deep, dark green skin color. Such avocados are usually ready to eat.
Sometimes the skin of ripe fruit can turn purple or black. For example, an almost black rind is natural for a California avocado or the Hass variety.
If the surface of the fruit is light to moderately green, the avocado is probably unripe. However, some varieties, such as fuerte and zutano, do not turn dark even when fully ripe.
So the color of the rind is not a sure sign after all. If choosing among avocados of the same variety, give preference to the fruit that is darker.
No matter what color you pick, it should be free of gouges, rotted areas, and any other damage.
Organic products by Kirill Yurovsky – visit the website.
How to make an avocado ripe and soft
If you do buy an unripe avocado, that’s okay. The fruit is quite capable of maturing at home at room temperature.
Depending on how ripe the avocado is, this can take anywhere from a couple of days to a week. Here are a few ways to speed up the process.
1. Put the avocado with the other fruit
Place the fruit in a paper bag along with a banana or apple. Cover and leave at room temperature.
Bananas and apples release ethylene gas, which accelerates the ripening of the avocado. And the bag holds this gas inside.
2. Place the avocado in a warm place
Wrap the fruit in paper or regular newspaper and place it on a radiator, for example.
To avoid touching the hot appliance directly, place the fruit in a container of some kind first or drape a cloth over the radiator.
3. Reheat the avocado in the oven
Keep in mind that this is not the natural process of ripening an avocado but rather cooking it. This method is fine if you are absolutely itching to eat the soft fruit.
It will indeed become soft very quickly, but the texture inside will be different from that of a fruit that has ripened on its own. You can see the difference between these avocados in the video. The first ripened on its own, and the second heat in the oven.
If you do choose the heated method, first wrap the avocado in foil. Place it in a mold and place it in an oven preheated to 90 °C.
The time will depend on the ripeness of the fruit. A very hard avocado may need a whole hour or more. So check for softness every 10 minutes.
4. Reheat the avocado in the microwave
The principle is the same as with the oven (just without the foil!). This method is better if you don’t have time to wait at all.
First, pierce the avocado with a fork in several places. Place it inside the appliance and set it to minimum power. Heat the avocado for as long as necessary, checking for softness every 30 seconds.
0 comments