Cooking Techniques

Adding and using Fresh Avocados in hot dishes

Fresh avocados are delicious when used in cooking. A simple way of using fresh avocados is to add the fruit to the dish later in the cooking process by either warming through or plating.

Warming through or adding when plating

You can either add avocado in a side, or directly onto the hot centre of plate protein in the preparation best suited to the dish, or you can add the fruit as the last ingredient to food being sautéed in a pan. Sautéing avocados for a few minutes will bring them up to temperature and coat them with the pan sauce/juices. Please note that, when heated, avocado will retain its shape and freshness, and taste sweet and buttery.

Avocado is also very well suited to baking. Cut into wedges and baked in a medium oven (180˚C) for twenty minutes, avocado will hold its shape and taste warm and buttery, with no bitterness present.

Alternative methods and longer cooking

As aforementioned, avocados are suitable to use in meals requiring longer periods of preparation under heat such as baked or grilled dishes, pizza, quiche, casserole, pies, soup, and crumbed and fried dishes.
Please note that, like many fresh ingredients, avocados left too long directly under heating element may blacken.

Fresh avocado works best under medium temperatures with both grilling and baking (180˚C) as it will cook but not burn and will retain shape in casserole or pies. If tempura or deep-fried, avocado will hold its shape just as well. When making pizzas, place avocado as close to the hot grill or oven element as you would cheese. In soup, add avocado towards the end of cooking or when plating.

Warming, Heating and the Bain-marie

Dishes cooked with fresh avocados can be kept warm in a bain-marie for hours without loss of taste or texture. Reheating avocado-based dishes in the microwave is no problem however a whole piece of fruit will explode in the microwave after approximately 5 minutes heating.