As I squeezed little lemon on it and ate it with soy sauce mixed with mayonnaise, it was unexpectedly delicious, and I felt very happy as if I gained something.

As I tried making it
Though it's a fruit, an avocado tastes neither sweet nor sour. So when it's begun to appear in the stores, I was perplexed how to eat it. It's widely known now that an avocado tastes great when eaten with salt, but it was my first time to try eating it deep-fried. The bright color of green peeping from the cracks of batter coating stimulates the appetite.

To make it recognizable as an avocado easily at a glance, I guess it's better to cut it into comb-shaped, but then it'd be hard to coat it in batter. So, I decided to split it into halves, cut them lengthwise in four after removing the seeds, and then cut them in half once again.

The best way to enjoy this deep-fried dish is to let it a bit cool before eating. If you eat it freshly fried, you'd feel a bit strange because the core part is not heated up. So, it tastes better when the batter coating gets cool, thereby there'll be only a slight temperature gap between the coating and the core part.

Plate: LUSUKA
From Shiki no Aji (April 1994)

Translated by Maiko Noda