They’re heaven sent

The avocado has the distinction of being one foodstuff that can cause actual structural damage. Artichokes may look threatening, but they can do no worse than a pinprick. An eggplant may look like a bowling ball, but it’s all water.

Avocados, on the other hand, are serious weapons. If you don’t believe me, you should have been at my house this summer when it seemed that every morning around 3:15, another one would fall from my tree onto the roof. It sounded like a bomb going off.

At first I’d jump out of bed and run to the kitchen, expecting to see some kind of hole in the ceiling. Now, I just roll over and fall back to sleep, secure in the knowledge that for at least one more day, we’ll eat well.

Because there is a bright side to all of this avocado bombing: The next morning I can stroll out in the backyard and pick up dinner (at least the fruit that hasn’t cracked or that the possums haven’t gotten to first).

After ripening for a few days, these giant avocados (they’re Gwens, a granddaughter of industry standard Hass, and they’re running about a pound apiece), have wound up in salads, spreads, soups and sandwiches. I figure this summer I’m averaging an avocado a day. As a result I’ve had to get a little creative.

The first couple weeks of the season, I was satisfied with something I learned from Evan Kleiman many years ago: Roughly puree an avocado with a fork, tart it up with some lemon juice (can it be coincidental that the start of avocado season overlaps with the end of my Meyer lemon crop?), then season it with salt and pepper. Lots of pepper. Black pepper, coarsely ground.

Spread this on a split, toasted focaccia roll and you’ve got one of the simplest, most delicious summer dishes you can imagine.

It’s but a short step from there to soup. Because avocados are so dense and so flavorful, you need only a blender and some chicken stock to make a quite voluptuous bisque. This is not exactly news. In Helen Evans Brown’s “West Coast Cookbook,” published in 1952, she lists half a dozen avocado soups, though none of them is quite like the recipe included here.

One lesson I’ve learned about making these bisques: A little sour dairy, such as yogurt, adds depth of flavor, but don’t stir it in until just before you’re ready to serve it. An enzyme in the avocado changes the taste of the milk if it sits for very long.

As with guacamole, I prefer my avocado soups rather plain (my favorite guac is still the one I learned back in the late ‘60s from New Mexico magazine: mashed avocado and garlic salt). But that doesn’t mean you can’t dress them up with garnishes. These can be as simple as snipped chives or a swirl of yogurt. Or they can be a little more complicated. Kernels cut from an ear of grilled corn are beautiful -- pale gold against the light green. And the goat cheese-chive quenelles, though simple to make, are impressively high-fashion.

Given the dressiness of that dish, this is probably the best time to address the issue of serving wine with avocados. The conventional wisdom seems to be: “Don’t.” There is truth to that. I tried these avocado dishes with a range of white wines including Chardonnay, Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc and at best achieved a tense standoff. The one exception was Gewurztraminer, in particular the Firestone Vineyards 2002 Santa Ynez Valley. It was simply spectacular with the avocado bisque.

Spreads and soups are best made with avocados that are fairly soft. Use the ones that are firmer for cutting up into salads or serving on sandwiches; the soft ones will crush and smear and, in general, misbehave in an ugly way.

I may be the last person on Earth to have realized this, but here’s a neat trick I picked up watching the guys at my local taco stand. Rather than pitting the avocado, trying to neatly scoop the meat out in one piece and then slicing it -- the way I had been doing it -- they slice the pitted avocado and then peel back the strips of skin from the individual slices. The slices don’t break up that way.

That avocados are able to survive their fall from grace, even onto a hard roof and then the hard ground, and still be edible is a tribute to a trick of nature. They’re falling not because they’re ripe but because they’re too heavy for their stems. Avocados are one of the few fruits that absolutely will not ripen on the tree. Scientists who study avocados are still not sure exactly what the mechanism is that tells the fruit to begin ripening, but they do know that it is only triggered after the avocado has been picked.

This is one of the reasons avocados are always so expensive. Unlike most fruit, which has to be picked and shipped to market within a several-day window, a mature avocado can hang on the tree for months, waiting for the right price. Is it any wonder that so many avocado orchards seem to be owned by retired stockbrokers and CEOs?

A careful ripening

As with any other fruit, perfect ripening can be a little tricky. When you buy an avocado, store it in a cool, dark place. Too much sunlight or too much heat can make the avocado’s oils, which are prodigious, go rancid.

But do not put it in the refrigerator. Chilling an under-ripe avocado will turn the fruit woody and flavorless (just as it does with peaches and nectarines). Once they’re ripe, avocados will hold just fine for four or five days in the refrigerator.

An avocado is ready to eat when there is a slight give in the hand. Notice: This is not the same as saying that it smooshes when you give it a good hard squeeze. In fact, one of the biggest problems with avocados at the grocery store is that they’ve been pawed over to the point of being bruised.

Lay it in your palm and press gently. When it stops being rock-hard, it’s ready.

These things might hit like a bomb when they fall from the tree, but they turn into real softies pretty quickly.

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Cold avocado bisque with goat cheese-chive quenelles

Total time: 20 minutes, plus at least one-half hour chilling time

Servings: 6

3 cloves garlic

2 pounds avocados (3 large), seeded, peeled and coarsely chopped

4 cups chicken stock

1 1/2teaspoons salt

1/4pound ( 1/2 cup) fresh goat cheese

2 tablespoons minced chives

1/2cup yogurt

1. With the blender running, remove the plastic cap and drop the garlic cloves through the hole in the lid to mince. Turn the machine off and add the chopped avocados.

2. With the machine running on medium speed, slowly add the chicken stock, pouring through the hole in the lid. Add the salt and turn the speed up to high to make a smooth, velvety puree. (Do in batches if necessary.) Chill in the refrigerator until serving time.

3. While the soup is chilling (one-half hour to 2 hours), beat together the goat cheese and the chives to make a smooth, soft paste.

4. When ready to serve, whisk the yogurt into the soup and divide the soup evenly into 6 bowls.

5. Using 2 teaspoons, form the goat cheese into 6 quenelles and place one in the center of each bowl. To form a quenelle, use one spoon to scoop up enough of the goat cheese mixture to fill its bowl. Use the other spoon to scoop the mixture out of the first spoon, turning it over to create a smooth side. Repeat a couple of times until the mixture is an attractive smooth-sided oval. Or, you can just scoop a less-than-perfect spoonful of the goat cheese mixture in the center of each bowl.

Each serving: 253 calories; 7 grams protein; 11 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams fiber; 22 grams fat; 6 grams saturated fat; 10 mg. cholesterol; 1134 mg. sodium.

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Grilled corn and avocado salad with lime-cumin vinaigrette

Total time: 20 minutes

Servings: 6

Note: This dish is perfect for a big barbecue, or for the day after, when you’ve got leftover grilled corn. The dressing is best made in a mortar and pestle, where you can grind the cumin, garlic and salt to a smooth paste. But as an alternative, you can powder the cumin in a spice grinder and puree the garlic on a cutting board by finely mincing it, sprinkling it with a little salt and then rubbing it to a paste with the flat of a chef’s knife.

1/2teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon pureed garlic

2 teaspoons salt

6 tablespoons lime juice (preferably from small, sweet Mexican limes)

1/4cup oil

2 pounds (about 3 large) avocados, pitted

2 ears of corn, grilled and husked

1/4pound radishes (about 12 medium)

1/4cup diced red onion

1. Prepare the dressing by whisking together the cumin-garlic-salt mixture and lime juice in a small bowl. Slowly add the oil, whisking constantly.

2. Prepare the salad by thinly slicing the pitted avocados, then carefully peeling away the skin from each slice. Put the avocado slices in a mixing bowl, pour 2 tablespoons of dressing over the top and stir gently to coat. Remove the avocado, draining the excess dressing back into the mixing bowl, and arrange the slices on a serving platter.

3. Using a large, sharp knife, cut the kernels away from the corn into the mixing bowl.

4. Quarter the radishes lengthwise. If they are large, cut them in half widthwise. Add the radishes and onion to the corn in the bowl along with the remaining dressing and stir to coat well.

5. Using a slotted spoon, remove the vegetables from the dressing, draining the excess dressing back into the mixing bowl. Mound the vegetables on top of the avocados. Serve immediately.

Each serving: 295 calories; 3 grams protein; 16 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams fiber; 27 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 0 cholesterol; 793 mg. sodium.

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Carne asada sandwiches with avocados and chipotle mayonnaise

Total time: 30 minutes, plus 30 minutes marinating time

Servings: 6

Note: Groceries in Latino neighborhoods usually sell thin cuts of round steak for making carne asada. If you can’t find it, substitute flank steak, skirt steak or even rib-eye and slice it thinly after grilling.

1 red onion, thinly sliced

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

3 cloves garlic

2 teaspoons salt, divided

2 tablespoons lime juice, divided

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 pounds round steak ( 1/4 to 1/3-inch thick)

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon pureed canned chipotle en adobo, with sauce

2 avocados, halved and pitted

6 bolillo rolls, focaccia rolls or other high-quality buns

1. Rinse the sliced red onion in a strainer under cold running water. Pat it dry, place it in a bowl and cover it with the red wine vinegar. Set aside for at least 30 minutes, up to 2 hours.

2. Using a mortar and pestle, pound the garlic with the salt to make a paste. Add 1 tablespoon of lime juice and incorporate it into the garlic. Slowly add the olive oil, stirring with the pestle to incorporate it too. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, this can be done in a food processor.

3. Spoon the garlic mixture over the steak, spreading it with the back of a spoon. Season well with salt. Turn the meat over and do the same with the other side.

4. In another small bowl, use a spoon to beat together the mayonnaise, pureed chipotle and 1 tablespoon of the lime juice.

5. Cut the pitted avocados into thin slices and carefully peel away the skin.

6. Grill the beef over high heat. If you’re using round steak, cook about 3 minutes on the first side, then turn and cook 1 or 2 minutes more. The meat should be medium rare in the center. If you’re using a thicker cut, leave the meat rarer in the center, cooking 6 or 7 minutes per side. Set the meat aside while you build the sandwiches.

7. Cut the rolls in half and spread with the chipotle mayonnaise, about 1 tablespoon for each half. Arrange the avocado slices on the top half of the roll, then add a couple of onion rings.

8. If you’re using round steak, cut the meat into pieces roughly the size of the bread and arrange on top of the onion rings. If you’re using a thicker cut, slice it thinly across the grain and then arrange it on the sandwich. Add the bottom half of the roll and press gently to compact everything together. Turn the sandwich right-side-up to serve.

Each serving: 650 calories; 47 grams protein; 36 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams fiber; 35 grams fat; 7 grams saturated fat; 113 mg. cholesterol; 869 mg. sodium.