Smoked Chicken, Avo & Fried Egg Open Sandwich

A Brief Reminiscence … 

Avocado and I were never on a good footing until fairly recently. My parents were very fond of avocado and ate it at every possible opportunity. We resided in Nelspruit those years and Dad’s job as junior Lab Technician for the now defunct Citrus Board took him out on the road almost daily to experimental sites at citrus orchards on farms located in the surrounding rural areas. Nelspruit, being smack bang in the middle of the Lowveld, was also Avocado Central, with many farms in the area dedicated to the production of the fruit. Consequently, Dad came home with a bag or box of avocados on an almost twice weekly basis.

 

Now Mom may have been fond of avocados, but Dad was flat-out addicted to it. Mom invariably served avo either as a purée on toast of any kind, or as chunks in a green salad. Dad’s adoration for avocados was so intense that I suspect if he could’ve barbequed (braai) it, he would’ve been in heaven and eaten it three times daily, seven days a week.

 

Everyone knows you have a quite narrow window with avocados in which they are at their prime both taste and texture wise. Use them too early and they are relatively hard and almost tasteless, use them too late and they are so soft and mushy as to be almost slimy, and often have a nutty background to its flavour profile that I objected to. Since Dad was still in the first years of his career, money was tight and a refrigerator was for them almost a luxury. Mom’s wasn’t large and only had space for the very essentials. Fruit were relegated to the large bowl on the kitchen table.

 

Mom was habitually overcautious with judging the degree of ripeness of her avocados. I objected, often vocally, to eating the mushy stuff (often just starting to brown or blacken). The glib, almost snotty texture disgusted me. And Mom’s habit of liberally dressing the cut fruit in fresh lemon juice and freshly ground black pepper did not suit me either. Maybe I should mention at this point that these events occurred during my pre-primary school days in the early 70’s and I was a first born to parents who were relatively unsure of what to do with a headstrong and busy child. Dad believed in strict discipline and did not tolerate any resistance to his instructions or authority. Inevitably avocados and I struck it off on the wrong foot, both feet actually.

 

Time, some maturity, culinary insight and cooking experience eventually brought tolerance and eventually acceptance of avocado’s place in this world. I still will not purchase avocados for myself as part of my normal diet, but I sometimes receive gifts of them from friends and acquaintances with trees in their yards at home.  Today they are gladly welcomed as they remind me of loved parents who passed too early and of earlier, more innocent and maybe despairingly naïve times.

 

We return to the present: I discovered some ready to eat, shredded and smoked chicken fillet meat in my deepfreeze and had some ripe avocados on hand. The somewhat chunky, fork-puréed avo (ironically with lots of fresh lemon juice and freshly ground black pepper) went particularly well with the savoury, smoked chicken and a man sized dollop of mild Wellington’s Sweet Chilli Sauce for the sake of balance.

 

Crusty, homemade white bread with an almost, almost charred upper crust served as the basis of this open-faced breakfast sandwich. The bitterness of the crust serving as a sobering counterpoint to the runny egg yolk’s blatant lusciousness, thereby saving the entire ensemble from being pushed over the edge into the realm of messy decadence.

 

But then again, you only live once.

 

 

© RS Young, 2021

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