Now avocados with a nod to the past

Every year more and more people discover the avocado.Avocados can be propagated by seed, taking roughly four to six years to bear fruit, although in some cases, as in mine, seedlings can take 10 years to come into bearing.

they were not to be

We planted our first avocado tree 10 years ago and eureka we we thought we had our first fruit this year and a serious harvest to contend with.Alas all the fruit fell off the tree when they were very small.Our diagnosis from research was that it was a lack of water.
The variety most common in Portugal is "Bacon."Developed by a farmer James Bacon in 1954. Bacon has medium-sized fruit with smooth, green skin with yellow-green, light-tasting flesh. When ripe, the skin remains green, but darkens slightly, and fruit yields to gentle pressure. It is cold-hardy down to −5 °C (23 °F).
 Most of us have fantasies of strong and spectacular plants surging from a sturdy pip we have saved.For many years in Britain,the avocado pear remained a gourmet fruit, known and loved by the rich and well-travelled,who were used to dining in restaurants. By the late 1950´s it had begun to appear on less exalted domestic dining tables and its aficianados, like my mother, were quick to spread the word of their new discovery.In addition to this the avocado soon took off as the "in" colour for home decorating, paint wallpaper,bathroom suites, glassware, tableware and much more.

I remember my mother serving Avocado vinaigrette as a starter to her dinner guests.My father turned his nose up at it,but for many others like myself, eating this dish may well have been their introduction to avocados.

Avocado Vinaigrette had become a traditional recipe for an entrée, which acknowledges that so scrumptious is the avocado that it is in little need of embellishment. 

The Avocado: Cut the avocados in half lengthways and gently twist the halves to separate. To remove the seed, insert a sharp knife into it, then twist and lift out.  Brush the surfaces with lemon juice and place the avocado halves on 4 serving plates, shake the dressing again and drizzle it evenly over the avocado halves.
Serve with buttered toast triangles (so retro)

Adapted from a recipe in The Readers digest family recipe scrapbook

I thought I would take inspiration from my mothers way of serving an avocado which is now laughably passé and turn it into something more "now", and hopefuly more in keeping with how we like to use and eat avocados today  -an avocado vinaigrette,same  name but a completely different way of serving it.
The avocado in this dressing makes it so silky creamy that you’ll have a hard time believing there isn’t dairy in it. Use your favourite extra virgin olive oil and fresh, bright lemon juice and you’ll have a new "house" dressing. This stuff now lives in a bottle (I like having bottles of homemade dressings) in our fridge. 
I am now quite open to a generous libation of some of that vinaigrette on any one of my standard  green salads
 Avocado vinaigrette
 Makes: 1 cup dressing

(this will leave you with plenty to jar up and store in the refrigerator)
1 ripe avocado

Juice of one lemon 
300ml extra virgin olive oil
125ml white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Flor de sal
1/4 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
1 clove garlic
generous sprinkling of Herbes de provence

Salt and pepper, to taste

Make the vinaigrette by placing all the ingredients in a food processor until well emulsified.

 The inspiration - Restaurant Maison es in Wan Chai Hong Kong

Thai - ger prawn cocktail 
loosely inspired by Restaurant Maison es in Wan Chai Hong Kong
Serves 3
A modern, lighter version of the retro starter, prawn cocktail.
The prawn cocktail has been around now for a good 30 years, and has spent most of it coming in and mostly out of fashion.The mixture of lettuce, prawns and Marie Rose sauce has seen countless amounts of tinkering, not all of them well judged, and now tends to make its appearance with something of an ironic wink.In this southeast-Asian-influenced version Chinese leaf replaces the lettuce,french beans are introduced along with sriracha sauce fresh chilli and Thai fish sauce.
The perfect way to start an outdoor lunch. Now leaving its 70s baggage behind, it can get on with being what it is – a thoroughly delicious salad.  

60g Chinese leaf or white cabbage, finely shredded
20g Thai basil, chopped (or half tarragon, half mint if you can't get it)
9 raw tiger prawns, peeled and de-veined (leave the tail fan on three of them)
60g French beans, topped, tailed and cut into 1cm pieces
80g cherry tomatoes, halved
1 avocado cut into dice
cayenne pepper
½ lime

For the sauce:
3 tbsps mayonnaise
1 tbsp sriracha sauce
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh red chilli
1 tsp fish sauce
juice of ½ lime
Mix the cabbage and nearly all the basil and put in the bottom of three martini glasses. Bring a small saucepan of salted water to the boil. Plunge the prawns into the water, turn the heat down and poach for four minutes. Leave them to cool on a plate. Scatter the French beans and tomatoes on top of the cabbage.
Mix together all the sauce ingredients. Roughly chop six of the prawns (the ones without the pretty tail bits) and stir into the sauce. Divide the mixture between the glasses, then scatter on the last of the basil.
Top each glass with your presentation prawn and a sprinkle of cayenne, and finish with a wedge of lime and perhaps a cocktail umbrella for decoration?

NOTE:Avocados do not "ripen" on the tree, that is, they do not get soft while on the tree. Once you pick an avocado, it takes about 7 to 10 days for it to soften when left at room temperature. You can speed the process up slightly by placing the avocado in a bag with some other ripe fruit (like an apple) or slow the process down by keeping the fruit in the refrigerator.