Crusty Stuffed Avocado

To think we originally skipped past this one in favour of avocado desserts (if only we did – I can just hear Cher now “If I could turn back time”).

Having read the title and seen the recipe, you probably have a few questions – “What is it stuffed with?”, “What is it coated in?”, “Oh wow, please tell me the skin has been removed!?” Or perhaps you are a little more like Bridget “Um…. what is that thing? It looks like a weird animal………”

Rest assured, I can confidently reveal that is it not some weird animal – it is crusty stuffed avocado!

The filling is stuffed with a mixture of Camembert cheese, garlic, fresh herbs (not actually specifying which herbs; we opted for chives and parsley, but let’s face it, it wouldn’t have mattered what we used) dash of Tabasco, lemon juice and pepper.

The recipe is relatively simple: Cut avocado in half lengthways, scoop out seed and flesh, mash flesh, combine with filing mixture, put back together, remove skin*, coat in crust and deep fry.

We didn’t have quite enough canola oil and couldn’t be arsed running back to the shops so we decided to “wing it” and combine a mixture of canola, grape-seed and olive oils (basically every neutral flavoured oil we had) And while I know it’s generally not recommended to use olive oil for deep frying, it was only a little bit, what difference would it really make?  What would it matter?

Quite a lot as it turns out. The different smoke points definitely made getting the temperature right a challenge **, but after about 30 mins, a bit of smoke, a loaf of crusty bread (to help determine temp) and a bottle of wine later (no explanation needed), we were ready to go!

After frying, then baking for an additional 15 minutes, and topping with an Almond Butter Sauce, it was time to dish up…

And then break in for the taste test…

The conversation around the dinner table went something like this:

Alister – “What is that?”

Emma – “Crusty Stuffed Avocado!”

Alister – “What is it stuffed with?”

Sarah – “Cheese, garlic and fresh herbs “

Alister – “Sounds nice”

Sarah – “Hmmmmm……… Maybe……” (doubtful look on face)

Emma – “Bridge, how does the filling taste?”

Bridget – “Like cheese”

Sarah – “Is it nice?”

Bridget – “Ummmmmm…… Not particularly” (disgusted look on face)

Anthony – “Part of my brain says it’s not that bad, the other part says I’m going to throw up”

Sarah – “Oh, it’s yucky……. it’s yucky!”

Emma  – “How does melted cheese not taste nice?”  (memories of crispy cheese pancakes come flooding back)

Sarah – “F*ck I am sick of avocado”

The warm, mushy, bitterness of the cooked Avocado was, simply put, not good!

The recipe says serves 2. We found it struggled to serve 5

* If any one is attempting to try this at home, and we recommend you don’t, but if you do, I would definitely encourage removing the skin before putting it back together. It would be so, so much easier

** Thank you to MasterChef for teaching me to always have a back up (believe it or not what we dished up was our second attempt). Crusty avocado would have been a whole lot crustier otherwise!