- I'm really excited that I love this so much.
This is so good.
Bless you avocados, you truly are a gift.
Wow!
Shit!
Oh my God.
Hi, I'm Beryl and this week I'm wearing green
in honor of the theme of the episode, avocados.
It's avocados.
If you've seen any of my other videos
this next statement might not come as a shock
however, I'm gonna put it out there
because I know that not all of you have seen them.
There will not be guacamole in this episode,
and there will not be avocado toast in this episode
while both of those are amazing avocado dishes,
I wanted to find things that you might not know about.
And if you do know about some of these
you probably don't know about all of them.
So, that being said, I have five avocado recipes
from five different countries
that I think will be very delicious.
So with that, let's begin.
I'm starting with an avocado dish from Eswatini.
You may know this country also as Swaziland.
This is just a simple salad.
In Swati the word for salad is Slaai.
So that's what we're gonna call this dish.
Since it's simple enough,
I thought we should talk a little bit about the country,
for starters where it is.
Eswatini is one of the smallest countries in Africa
and it's located in the South of the continent.
I'm actually gonna show you on a map,
it's just here between South Africa
and Mozambique on the Eastern coast.
But as you can see, it's landlocked.
Back to cooking, the capital is Mbabane
with around 95,000 residents.
And the cuisine in Eswatini is generally grain
and vegetable base.
So the ingredients in this salad
represent a lot of the common plants in the country
avocados being one of them, as well as ginger and peanuts.
Okay, so this is called slaai,
there are a lot of different iterations of this dish.
This is a popular version of it though.
So pretty basic, I think it's gonna be delicious.
It is so fresh tasting like it's a burst of sunshine
in your mouth.
I actually think that the nutty flavor lends itself
really nicely to the avocado, like this as a side dish
just kind of lightens everything, but then the peanuts
give it a little bit more depth
because the ginger and lemon juice are so acidic.
Honestly, this is like a really, really well balanced salad.
You have to marinate this for 20 minutes
with the salt, lemon juice and ginger
and I think that that time is really important
and not something that you should skip,
because it really does get into the avocado
rather than just being a coating on top of it.
It is just like smiling deucing, you can't help it.
(laughing)
Next up we're shifting to a Filipino dessert.
It's only two ingredients, avocados and condensed milk.
In many countries in Asia,
and I'm actually sure beyond that,
avocados are used in desserts,
which is a large departure
from how the western world looks at avocados.
They are mostly just savory.
So I was very intrigued to try this.
Often people add ice to the dish,
but I actually didn't have any ice,
so I refrigerated it and voila!
This is something that I have actually
wanted to try for a while now
and it's two ingredients.
So how could I not include it, you know.
Oh my gosh, honestly, put condensed milk on anything
and I'll tell you it tastes amazing,
but I totally get this,
I totally get how avocado is a dessert.
Oh my God, this is so good.
It tastes like pudding.
Like this tastes like the creamiest,
like freshest pudding you've ever had.
I can't really believe that in the U.S.
avocados are only savory, we are missing out on so much.
Wow, wa, wa, wa, wow!
I ate all that in like one second.
I obviously didn't put enough in my bowl.
17 out of 10, will highly recommend.
This is an avocado soup from Colombia.
Now, this is more of a regional dish
and not something commonly found across the entire country.
In fact, it comes from a small town called Tomaco.
And this is a port city on the Pacific Ocean
right next to the Ecuadorian border.
Avocado production in Colombia has actually been ramping up
over the years as the climate is really well-suited
for this fruit.
And online I read that they are aiming
to be the second largest avocado producer
in South America, after Mexico.
This soup can be served hot or cold.
Okay, if I hold the bottom, can you do the top?
- It's slipping because of the towel.
- I went with hot because I've never heard of
or tried hooked avocado, and in this recipe you boil it.
So I thought that that could be interesting.
If I'm being totally honest, green soup kind of gives me
Dr Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham vibes,
but it smells really good.
So there it is.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so, this is a Colombian avocado cream soup,
and I have never eaten cooked avocado, I don't think.
So, this is the first.
Interesting.
The more eat it, the more I like it, actually.
It is very savory and oftentimes I think about avocado
is kind of a sweeter tasting flavor,
but this is a very savory soup through and through.
Before halfway through cooking,
it was kind of, but the final product
looks really beautiful.
I think that avocado is interesting because I don't think
that it has a super strong flavor to it.
So putting it here with the heavy cream
and the chicken stock, the cumin,
it does for me booze a little bit of that avocadoness.
However, I still think that the avocado adds
an element of creaminess and thickness to the soup
that makes it like very comforting and nice.
Learning something new every time I do these videos,
it is so exhilarating.
(laughing)
Next, this is a stuffed avocado dish from Guinea-Bissau.
In this dish, the avocado is mashed up with tuna
and then it is served in the skin of the hollowed out fruit.
And this is something that also exists in other countries
but I really liked the preparation of this dish.
Guinea-Bissau is a small country in Western Africa,
I'm actually going to pull the map back up.
You can see here it's on the Atlantic coast,
bordering Senegal and Guinea.
Like many African countries Guinea-Bissau
was colonized in the 1400 by the Portuguese,
and it wasn't until 1974
that they regained their independence.
Seafood is a staple of the cuisine
as it is a sea bordering country
and in this recipe, I'm using heavy cream whipped
but I did see other recipes using evaporated milk instead.
This is quite a common appetizer in the country
and it comes together quite quickly,
and honestly it looks really nice.
Okay, so this session is from Guinea-Bissau
a small country in Western Africa.
And in essence, it's tuna stuffed avocado.
Oh my gosh, this is so good.
(laughing)
And a meal like that, but like when
I was putting the heavy whipping cream in there
I thought, what are we doing?
What is this?
What's happening?
Wait, oh my goodness!
The tuna fish on the avocado go really well together.
I don't think that that's quite a surprise.
For me the left-field element where the graded coconut,
the spicy tomato sauce and the heavy whipping cream.
And I'm not gonna tell you why all them actually
work like a perfect symphony.
Okay, so the whipped cream, I believe
is acting like a mannys except, but there isn't
that kind of heaviness that manny's
can lend to a tuna salad.
So what you're getting from it
is this very kind of like creamy tuna salad
without that heavy back end ceiling.
And then the spicy tomato sauce injects this element
of savory that is very surprising,
it kind of like hits you in the back of the tongue.
I really don't know much about Guinea-Bissau as a country
so I love that I can try something
from the cuisine over there.
And I've learned a lot about the country and doing this.
I would have added more hot sauce.
Made those a little spicier
when I do it again 'cause I'm definitely making this again.
Oh my God!
That was so good.
I'm very happy.
Oh my gosh Rajat, it's so good, did try it?
- Yeah.
- Finally, we are ending this episode with a smoothie.
And I actually had this smoothie
when I was staying with my sister in Damascus, Syria,
and you know, avocados and smoothies,
I know is not just a Syrian thing
you can find this everywhere,
but this drink stuck with me because it was the first time
I had ever had an avocado and a drink.
While alcohol is not banned in Syria
the majority of people are not heavy drinkers.
So fruit smoothies, and fruit drinks
like this are very, very popular.
The shop that this actually comes from
had the most amazing presentations.
The shop is called Abi Shaker
and it's actually still open today.
I'm just gonna put in a couple of photos,
look at these drinks, they're amazing, right?
Anyway, so it is simple but it is so refreshing
and light and very easy to make
if you want to shake up your fruit drinks, once in a while.
My final avocado dish is a smoothie
and before you're like, "oh yeah, an avocado smoothie."
This has a personal story, and it was delicious
so I included it.
Man, that is so good.
Avocado and banana, just go so well together.
Just like with the soup,
I don't think that the flavor of the avocado
in a smoothie like this is gonna be overpowering
but I think that what it does is make it just thick
and creamy and delicious.
And so adding it allows the other flavors
of whatever else you're blending it with to really stand up,
but it kind of adds depth.
So I don't think that this tastes like an avocado,
but it tastes like,
well, it tastes like everything else in there,
it's just really good.
It's nice when you have memories associated with the dish,
you know, so like for this even though
it's just a smoothing, makes me happy
'cause I'm remembering all these amazing things I did.
And that wraps up the avocado episode.
I hope that you guys liked the video
and that you learned a little bit more
about this fruit and what it's capable of.
That it's more than just guacamole` and avocado toast.
Although those are two really delicious things.
So, yeah, okay, see you guys are my next video.
(laughing)
(gentle music)