Avocado Salad

Avocado is not a common scene in Chennai. It has become quite popular in the recent days and is available occasionally in supermarkets and vegetable stores (the kinda poshy ones!). Also, not to mention the cheta juice shops that sell yumm avocado milkshakes, but that’s it! It is still a fruit that is not widely used in Tamilnadu. Every time we go to Chili's Grill & Bar, the American casual dining restaurant in Chennai, I get turned down on their Avacado guacamole due to the unavailability of ingredients. But I have always wanted to try Avacados in savory and salads.

During our recent visit to Jaffna, I ran into tons of avocados at the local store and it was dead cheap. So I decided to try a variety of avocado dishes and the best of the lot was the avocado salad. Locally available produce and some handy ingredients for the dressing is all you need for this salad. It is extremely fresh, creamy, rich and goes well with some crispy thins, nachos, plain potato chips or toasts.

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Ingredients

Avocado – 2 nos

Lettuce – a small floret or 2 cups chopped

Cucumber – 1 medium sized

Onions – 2 nos

Tomato – 2 nos

Grilled Chicken (optional) – 2 cups of any grilled or roasted chicken (leftovers are great too!)

For the dressing

Lemon – 1 big size

Olive oil – 100 ml

Salt – as required

Cheese spread – 2 heaped tsps

Pepper – as required

Coriander leaves – 1 sprig

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Method

Chop up all the vegetables into medium bite-size portions and transfer into a big mixing bowl. Mix all the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl and drizzle on top of the vegetables as you mix and incorporate them all together. Be careful not to mash up the avocados as they can get really mushy and end up looking messy.

*Note that this salad has to be consumed immediately after preparation and cannot be stored. The avocados start turning black and you will find the dish getting watery as time goes by.