Avocados

crkoller

In my college biochem class we discussed enzymes like polyphenol oxidase - in fruits and veg & my professor mentioned given the proper equipment it is possibly to denature the enzymes so the browning doesn't occur. I always get so bothered when avocados look great one minute and brown and sad the next especially when I dont want to cover them in citrus to stop the browning...

At what temp and for roughly how long do you think it would take to knock-out the browning enzymes in an I.C.?

Has anyone tried this?

-CRK

Chris_Young_80640

@Chris Yes, you'll need to heat the entire avocado to very near the boiling point of water and keep it there for at least a minute or two. PPO is very heat resistant enzyme. Can't recommend the approach. Vitamin C, or even better a properly diluted solution of sodium benzoate (Campden tablets) is a more humane strategy—at least for those of us who will eat the avocado.



It's interesting that some varieties of avocado's are more resistant to enzymatic browning than others. The Haas (what we usually get in the States) browns readily, but I recall Harold McGee telling me about a variety in Israel that were very slow to turn brown. Can't recall the variety though.