Author Notes
I moved from Portugal to Brasil in 1975 and a whole new food world opened to me... São Paulo had at the time 15 million inhabitants, of which 60% are Italian descendant, plus a huge community of Japanese and Arab descendants.
You can find these communities in established areas where they have restaurants, supermarkets and shops with their own produce.
I had only travelled in Europe at the time and knew little about food outside my little world. Oriental and Arab food were a totally mystery as was Brazilian food.
The fruit and vegetable market were out of this world. Fabulous fruit, smelling of ripe fruit.I became totally addicted to avocados which I had never eaten before, huge and just ripe enough, with an outstanding taste.
The curious thing about cooking with avocados then was that it was only used in smoothies and desserts. The savoury version would only appear in fancy restaurant menus.
Avocado Cream quickly became my favourite dessert. It was a dessert everyone made at home, as easy as 1-2-3. I learned that recipe from my in laws cook. Today, you can find recipes for this dessert but they are mainly sweetened with concentrate milk which I don’t like.
This is the 1975 version (am I getting old or what?!)
—Maria Teresa Jorge
Ingredients
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2
avocados, semi soft to the touch
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1 1/2 cups
milk
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1
medium yellow lemon – juice
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1
lime - grated for decoration
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Sugar to taste
Directions
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Cut the avocados lengthwise around the seed. Open the two halves to expose the pit. Cut the halves in half again, exposing more of the pit. Discard the pit. With a spoon, scoop out the avocado’s flesh.
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Put the avocado, 1 cup of milk and juice of 1 lemon in food processor and beat until creamy – ice cream consistency. If needed, add more milk, it depends on the size of the avocado and weigh of flesh. As I say previously, you want the consistency of ice-cream.
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Add sugar to your liking - it should be sweet, it's a dessert. Again here, it's your call, I like mine sweet as I like the taste of the avocado, the acidity of the lemon and the sweetness of the sugar.
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Divide in bowls or put the cream in one big bowl. Decorate with zested lime.
Refrigerate at least 1/2 hour.
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Note: Even though the cream has lemon juice, it will darken slightly with the oxidation of the avocado, so better eat as soon as possible.
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