Cookbook review: Absolutely Avocados by Gaby Dalkin

If you love avocados, get your hands on this cookbook. If guacamole is the extent of your culinary adventures with avocados, get your hands on this cookbook. If you never thought in a million years you could make ice cream using avocados, get your hands on this cookbook! Purchase Absolutely Avocados >>

All about avocados

Gaby Dalkin, the chef and blogger behind Absolutely Avocados: 80 Amazing Avocado Recipes for Every Meal of the Day, used 419 avocados to create the recipes for this cookbook and spent months testing them. As the name declares, the focus of this cookbook is on the green goodness that is the avocado, and, interestingly, dessert recipes are included, too. But don’t despair if you go gaga over guacamole. You’ll find eight intriguing options within the pages of this book, and all of them look out-of-the-ordinary amazing. Brilliant images are included with nearly every recipe, along with a brief intro for each.

From simple-to-make salads like bacon, avocado & corn salad, to the summer-inspired healthier avocado lobster roll sandwich, all of Gaby’s recipes include avocados in ways you might never before have imagined. They’re included on pizzas, served up with seafood and have a place in chocolate chip cookies (consider that subbing avocado for most of the butter allows you to eat a few more without as much guilt). Mostly they appear as the star of the show, like in the recipe for Parmesan-panko avocado fries, but sometimes their presence is slightly more subtle, like in avocado brownies.

From the market to your kitchen

Gaby provides a simple, descriptive overview of some of the different varieties of avocados (who knew there were hundreds around the world?) and walks readers through the process of how to select the perfect avocado and properly store it. So you don’t waste a bit of your precious avocado or have its pit rolling around on the kitchen floor, Gaby also imparts avocado-cutting expertise along with step-by-step, instructional photos.

Pan-seared salmon with avocado-pepper relish

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 Hass avocados
• 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper, 1/4-inch dice
• 1/2 cup chopped yellow bell pepper, 1/4-inch dice
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chives
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped jalapeño chili pepper
• 1-1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 4 (8 ounce) skin-on salmon fillets
• Lemon wedges, for serving

Directions:

1. Cut each avocado in half lengthwise. Remove the pit from the avocado and discard. Remove the avocado from the skin, and carefully dice the avocado into 1/2-inch cubes.
2. Transfer to a medium bowl. Add the chopped red and yellow bell peppers, 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, the chives, jalapeño and the lime juice.
3. Carefully mix together and taste and season with the salt and pepper as needed.
4. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat until almost smoking. Season the salmon fillets with salt and pepper on both sides and the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil.
5. Transfer to the hot skillet, skin side down. Cook the fillets for 4 to 5 minutes on each side, until just lightly pink in the center.
6. Serve immediately with equal portions of the avocado-pepper relish and a wedge of lemon.

More cookbooks to try

The Sprouted Kitchen by Sara Forte
Vegan Cooking for Carnivores by Roberto Martin
Small Changes, Big Results by Ellie Krieger