Radish Avocado Salad

Fast and perfect for the warmer months, this salad is cold, crunchy and crisp. I’ll also tell you the trick with avocados that my mother taught me when I was young.

Ingredients:

• 4 Large Red Radishes
• 1 Large Ripe Avocado
• 2 Tablespoons of Lime Juice
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Preparation:

Chop the radishes, these will provide a crunch to the salad.
Now cut open the avocado. Picture it as an egg shape, with the wider part the base.
Cut down the top and when your knife hits the seed, rotate it to make one round cut through the skin and down to the seed.
It should be ripe enough that the cut goes down easy*.
Once the cut is complete, twist the two parts and pull them apart.
One side will have the seed. Push your knife blade flat into the seed as if you were karate chopping it.
Watch out because the seed is quite hard and you don’t want to do this so fast that you cut the hand cupping the avocado.
Once your knife is good and stuck into the seed, twist right and left gently until it is loose from the “meat” of the avocado.
Then simply tap it off your knife and into the garbage**.
Now cup one half of avocado and with your knife cut slices vertically then horizontally.
The closer the slices the smaller your avocado cubes will be.
Do this to the other half.
Take a tablespoon and dip it under the “meat” of the avocado and scrape against the inner skin.
Spoon the avocado over your chopped radish.
Use the same spoon to stir the avocado and radish together, add salt pepper and the lime juice. Be careful, some people find 2 full tablespoons of lime juice is too much for their palate.

Notes:
* Perfectly ripe avocados are hard to come by. I usually buy an entire bag of them, when doing this remember you should look for ones that are still quite hard. For a day or two leave them out on your counter to ripe, once they are soft to a gentle squeeze, you should put them in the fridge. They are usually good for a week after they are ready for the fridge, however some are just more likely to “seed”. You can tell if the avocado has started to “seed” only by cutting it open. You will see light brown wood-like veins sprouting out from the center seed. These avocados are still okay to eat, however the light brown parts will be gritty and not entirely pleasant. If upon cutting open an avocado there are brown mushy spots, this is the rotten part, and should not be eaten. Generally if you cut the rot off, the left over avocado is still alright to eat.

** You don’t have to throw the seed out! Especially if you have kids this is a cute little project. You can read more about this process here: How to Grow an Avocado Seed into an Avocado Tree