We tried the recipe from Jamie Oliver’s Easy Air Frier recipe book (Image: Samantha Downes)
Everything it seems, can be air fried, and in his latest book Easy Air Frier Jamie Oliver has included an air fried avocado .
He does warn that air frying avocados is a divisive issue. On his page writes: “I put on the menu these Avocado fries, I really like them there spiced, seasoned with a corn meal crunchy outside….. And it’s really interesting there so so popular but people just really love them or hate them simple as that gotta love cooking.”
Well, my family love avocados but catering to the different iterations of this popular green fruit is a challenge; my 11-year old is a fan of topping them on some crispy toast, my 16 year old prefers to eat them cold with mayonaise and my husband will only eat them in a salad.
I am a child of the 1970s/80s so grew up on avocados mixed with prawn cocktail. I have been known to have the fruit with Marks and Spencer’s ‘best ever’ version when my wallet allows.
The only challenge to making the was finding some semolina, which Oliver uses to give the chips their cripsy coat. We live near several large supermarkets and it was nowhere to be found.
So instead I opted for polenta. We have used the maize-based grain to make our pizzas nice and crispy so why not avocado chips.
[ADVICE]
I added seasoning and then some fajita mix before putting them in air frier basket (we have the Instant Pot version but others are available) being careful to space them out and then cooked them on a setting of 200 degrees for 15 minutes.
The avocados, stayed nice and firm and didn’t stick to the basket, a surprise I had expected to find a very fried mush. So that was a good start.
But when it came to taste them my family of ‘six ‘ were less than impressed.
The hot avocado was too “dry and tasteless” tasted like “hot banana but in a bad way” and I was asked: “is that really avocado”.
Even our two Beagles Winnie and Charli turned their noses up, and that is saying something about a breed of dog known for being a ‘stomach on legs’.
But I’d bought nine avocados and only used 2, and as I absolutely hate food waste decided to give the another go.
This time I went with an ingredient we use a lot: mayonaise. There is no food in our household that cannot be paired with the stuff so why not these?
So I rolled the avocados in some mayonaise (we use Aldi’s brand Bramwells 89p for 250ml before coating in a polenta mix from Sainsbury’s (£1.90 for 400g) which included salt and pepper, some chilli powder and some garlic powder.
They were cooked using the same timings as before.
The difference this time, apart from an amazing smell in our kitchen, was how much better they tasted. They were not quite as dry and the polenta made them crispy.
They tasted even better with a mayonaise dip – we mixed some with some chilli jam made by my friend Ness at Christmas.
I’m not sure Jamie intended them to taste that way, but within five minutes all four avocados had been snaffled, without having to give them to our dogs!