Easy three ingredients avocado smoothie is easy to make, natural and nourishing.
Live is so satisfying now because we have so many yummy foods around. The reason and background of my little food blog is the Chinese stores outside China, providing high quality Chinese ingredients. On the other side, we can buy all kinds of good products from the world too. Avocado is one of the out coming star. It is popular among the younger generation and almost available in every super market.
In China, we have a lovely name for avocado- 牛油果(butter fruit) in order to describe the animal fat texture and taste. When I was selecting my avocado for the first time, possibly around 2 years ago, I was nicely suggested by an old man who was quite aware of my hesitation. He complained that the avocado taste quite weird and it was a waste of money (coast 6 RMB each one in China). He suggested that I should give up this ingredient and save my money for other yummy food. Since avocado is such a great ingredient, I really do not want to give it up. My first step is to taste it directly. My husband turns back at it firstly with the same opinion as the old man in the market. Then it is refused by my little daughter again. I believe the best way of making avocado acceptable is to mix it with other ingredients and soften the butter taste and texture. Then smoothie jump up and seems to be the best option.
Banana is always a good partner for smoothie since it not only changes the texture, but also providing a widely accepted fundamental flavor.
Cook’s Note
- Never eat unripe avocado!! It will be a disaster. A ready to eat ripe avocado has a dark color other than the green unripe ones. And it touches slightly softened.
- Ripe banana is the best partner of avocado. It provides a very solid foundation which can soften the taste of avocado. So this smoothie is also a very good way to consume ripe bananas. If you want to make a iced smoothie for hot summer, frozen the ripe banana previously. If you want to taste very little avocado taste in the finely smoothie, two banana with another extra ½ cup of milk is a better combination.
Ingredients
- 1 avocado cubed
- 1 ripe banana, either room temperature or chilled peeled and chopped
- 1 cup milk
Instructions
- Place avocado, banana and milk in a blender and blend until very smoothie.
Nat
I couldn't help laughing about the reactions of your husbond and daughter,. I literally can see them making faces 🙂
I like avocado a lot as it is so versatile. It works well in both savoury and sweet dishes, both hot and cold. My all time favourite is sliced avocado on toast topped with a fried egg for breakfast, closely followed by chilled avocado soup on a hot summer day and guacamole as a snack.
Elaine
Thanks for the suggestion. I will try the option with eggs as breakfast.
Andreas
Hi Elaine,
you are so right about this. It's really great to have ingredients from all over the world available. And in addition to that recipes from all over the world, thanks to the Internet and of course people like you who take the time to publish and explain them. Makes cooking - and eating - so much more exciting.
Around here Avocado - which is not native here either - is often served cut in halves with the seed removed and the remaining hole filled with a sour cream, yogurt dressing often mixed with cooked small shrimps. The halves are served without removing the skin, so you have have the joy of scraping them out with a small spoon at the table. I loved that when I was a kid.
Elaine
Shrimp with avocado, what's an interesting idea. How do you cook the shrimp?
Andreas
Hi Elaine,
the traditional way is to cook them in sea water, on the ship that catches them right after emptying the net. After they are brought to shore the shells are removed and the shrimps are stored in a salty brine for transportation. That technique originates however from times when cooling facilities where not available to keep them from spoiling,.
Nonetheless it produces a quite unique taste and adds salt to the dish you add them to.
Nowadays you can just use fresh shrimps and cook them in a salty solution. I typically use around 35 g salt per liter when I want to "cook with seawater".
Note however, that the kind of shrimps we use for this are quite small (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crangon_crangon) not much bigger than a child's little finger. So one should cut bigger ones apart to that size.
I think it would probably also work well with Crab sticks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_stick) which might be more easily available and cheaper.
Elaine
Andreas,
I can almost image the unique taste of the small shrimps soaked in salty brine. Kind of seafood pickles. There are similar skill in Chinese cuisine too.
Crab stick must be one of the most convenient choose for me. Thanks so much for your kindness and information.
Andreas
Hi Elaine,
I'm glad to be of help. By the way, I'd also add "dill" (蒔蘿), some lemon juice and some sugar to the dressing. If dill is not available a bit of mustard powder and some finely cut chives (or similar) for the texture may be substituted.
Anyhow, I'm convinced that with your cooking skills you'll get your family begging for more avocado dishes quite soon 🙂
Jessica
Hello Elaine,
This recipe looks delicious! I am from Texas, and we usually eat avocados with spicy dishes to cool down the flavor. I love the name “butter fruit”, that is a perfect way to describe them. To ripen them faster, I place them in a paper bag, and check them everyday until they are soft. When I ate one everyday, my skin became very soft and radiant from their healthy fats. I will try this smoothie for breakfast. I have a bunch of frozen bananas that need to be used.
Thanks again and happy eating 🙂
Elaine
Hi Jessica,
Thanks so much for such an informative comment. Using this with spicy dishes is quite interesting. Yes, butter fruit might be a better way for describing.
fred
Avocado! How charming. Choose the greenest (unripe) avocado. Ripen in a steamer(!) with cover on. Test once each day for 4 or 5 days until it gives just a little bit. Do not squeeze too hard, as the fruit will be easily bruised. After it feels like very cold (not frozen) butter, move to the refrigerator for to finish ripening where it will be fresh for about 1 week more.
A steamer stack is a wonderful way to ripen fruit. It works for all stone fruit. It keeps fruit flies off, and you can ripen several different kinds of stone fruit at the same time.
Elaine
Thanks so much for your lovely information, Fred!