Baked Avocado Fries!

Avocado fries? I had heard of them certainly but I eschewed the idea until my friend JY whose taste I trust rhapsodised about them. Now that I've tried them I need to tell you first up that these are seriously good. Slices of ripe avocado are dipped in a spicy cornflour, then beaten egg and then panko breadcrumbs. They're given a final coat of cheese before being baked for just 15 minutes! Before I knew it, I was happily devouring half of them while sitting on my hands so I wouldn't finish the rest.

Last week I was hoping to bring you a story about how to ripen an avocado quickly. Because I don't know what you're like in your country but in Australia, avocadoes recently became a talking point when they hit the $6 mark. Yup $6 each. And we love them a lot so a lot of us were paying that much to get our little fix of creamy sandwich spread. Everyone I knew was talking about it and tsking at the prices.

A video of how to make avocado fries!

And finding that perfectly ripe, blemish free avocado usually means buying them when they are hard and leaving them on your windowsill to ripen. I have found that if I buy them soft-ish they aren't as good. So according to a video I saw, you no longer have to wait three days for the avocado to ripen. You can hasten the process by wrapping it in foil and baking it for 20 minutes. However I found that while the avocado does get softer, it lacks a creamy texture and has the astringent taste that you get with unripe avocado. It isn't great and I wouldn't recommend wasting them on it.

To show you another example of how much we love them, a friend of mine lived in a share house and in the backyard they had an avocado tree. It was such a draw that they always mentioned the access to free, unlimited avocadoes in ads when looking for potential flatmates. Anyway, now that I've established that we are nuts over a vegetable, let me give you a recipe. And I don't know if it is just me, but baked avocado every so slightly tastes like poached chicken to me. Eve if you don't feel that it tastes like chicken, I'm willing to bet that you will adore these fries. This is definitely a pushy recipe where the fries are wonderfully crunchy although they are baked and they have a gorgeous creamy texture in the centre. And the sour cream and sweet chilli sauce is the best accompaniment for them. I wanted to eat the whole tray so I've budgeted for you to make one avocado's worth of fried per person. You can thank me later ;)

So tell me Dear Reader, how much is the most you would or have paid for an avocado? And do you think that baked avocado tastes like poached chicken? Am I crazy? Don't answer that ;) x

Baked Avocado Fries

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Degree of difficulty: very easy

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes

Serves 1

• 1 ripe but not overly ripe avocado per person (I'm not messing about, this is really good and you won't want to share them)
• 1/3 cup cornflour/fine cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 50g/1.7oz. finely grated tasty cheese
• Oil for drizzling
• 3 tablespoons sour cream
• 1.5 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 225C/437F. Line a baking tray and drizzle with oil. Mix the cornflour and cayenne in a small bowl. Have the beaten egg ready in another shallow bowl and the breadcrumbs in another.

Step 2 - Slice the avocado into 10 or 12 slices-like potato slices. Dip each piece into the cornflour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs. PLace on the prepared tray and add finely grated cheese on top and then drizzle with oil. Bake for 10 minutes. Check if there are any dry spots of flour and add a little oil if needed. Bake for another 5 minutes. Serve with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce.