Choosing avocados in grocery stores challenging

Recipes that appear in Idea Alley have not been tested by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“I am really bad at picking avocados. I recently bought a bag of 5. They were what I would call hard when I bought them. I let them rest a day or two to ripen and when I cut the first one it was still almost too hard to eat but already had black growing around the edges. Especially close to the stem.

They did not get any better on the following days. I ended up throwing the last one out. There was not enough good in it to salvage.

Do you have any tips on selecting avocados?”

— Mike Metzler

Selecting and cutting open an avocado can feel like playing the lottery. And unfortunately, it sort of is. I, too, have been forced to throw away more avocados than I care to think about. I’ve also had the misfortune of avocados that looked perfectly ripe when I cut them open only to take a bite and be met with a rotten, fermented fruit.

Darkened, mushy avocado flesh is often the result of over-ripening or mishandling. Dropping, crushing or squeezing a rock-hard, green avocado may not appear to do any immediate harm, but these actions can severely bruise the fruit making it dark and mushy when it ripens.

Avocados are a bit like peaches and pears, they will give to gentle pressure when ripe, but often people apply too much pressure. To test for firmness, hold the avocado in your palm; don’t squeeze it any harder than you’d pinch a baby.

My advice is to continue buying them when they are hard with smooth, vibrant green skin. Hass avocados, the most common variety available, will turn dark green to blackish as they ripen and the skin will be bumpy. Let them ripen at room temperature. Placing the avocados in a paper bag will help speed ripening, but it could still take a few days. You can slow ripening by placing the avocados in the refrigerator. One way to tell if an avocado is ready to eat — don’t do this to avocados you have not bought — is to gently pull at the stem cap. If it resists, the avocado is not ready. If it comes off easily and the flesh beneath it is green, it’s ready. If the flesh is brown, it may be over ripe.

My recipe for Fried Potatoes With Burnt Okra and Corn, featured in Front Burner on Aug. 4, prompted a reader wishing to remain anonymous to share this recipe.

“This was the hit of our Fourth of July get-together a few years ago,” she writes. “I couldn’t fry the okra fast enough. I hadn’t intended for it to be an appetizer, but my gathering made it so! The people who ‘didn’t like okra’ couldn’t get enough of it.”

Fried Okra (Now an Appetizer!)

¾ cup buttermilk

1 large egg, beaten

¾ cup all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon salt, plus more for serving

1 cup Premium Saltine cracker crumbs (1 sleeve)

1 pound medium-size okra (leave whole)

Vegetable oil for frying

Mix buttermilk and egg together.

Combine flour, salt and cracker crumbs. Dip whole okra in buttermilk mixture; dredge in crumb mixture.

Heat 2 inches of oil in skillet to 350 degrees. Fry okra for 3 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on paper towel.

Season with salt immediately and serve.

REQUESTS

■ Squash casserole like that served at the Dixie Cafe but different from the recipes previously published in Idea Alley for Jenni Duncan.

■ Salsa like that at Bleu Monkey Grill In Hot Springs for Sam Ivy. “It has a great flavor but something gives it a dark red color that I can’t figure out,” Ivy writes.