Pick Up A Grapefruit Knife For Smarter Avocado Scooping

While there are lots of tricks for ripening avocados more quickly, it can be hard to scoop out that perfectly ripe avocado flesh to make the most picture-perfect avocado toast and other dishes. While you could buy a special tool made just for this purpose, a grapefruit knife works just as well, without being a unitasker that you can only use for one thing. A grapefruit knife has a curved and sometimes serrated blade that's ideal for separating a fruit's flesh from the outer skin. In addition to grapefruits and other citrus, the distinctive blade also works well with the shape of an avocado, allowing you to scoop the flesh from the peel with minimal effort.

The average grapefruit knife costs about as much as tools just for avocados, so it isn't always a cheaper alternative, but it is undeniably more useful. After all, you can use a grapefruit knife on just about any curved fruit or vegetable. You can use it to hollow out tomatoes before stuffing them, or to scoop watermelon flesh out of the rind in no time. There's no need to have a specialized avocado gadget taking up space in your kitchen when you can use the far more versatile grapefruit knife.

Though designed for carving grapefruit and other large citrus, a grapefruit knife has countless other uses. This tool can cut through and remove the seeds and membranes in peppers. The curved blade also works perfectly to remove the seeds in other produce, such as when scooping the guts out of a pumpkin for carving. Similarly, you could use a grapefruit knife to make twice-baked potatoes, gently scooping the tender baked potato flesh from the skin without damaging either part, so you can mix the flesh with seasonings before stuffing it back into the shells.

Aside from scooping, a grapefruit knife is an excellent alternative to a standard knife when it comes to shaving the skin off ginger root. And why invest in a big box grater for chocolate or cheese when you can easily use your handy-dandy grapefruit knife to achieve beautiful chocolate curls, or thin shavings of parmesan for your salad? Just use the thin yet precise knife to delicately shave thin pieces of off a bar of chocolate or a hunk of cheese.

Now that you know the best way to scoop out avocado flesh, you should pay attention to how you remove the pit from the fruit. The most dangerous part of cutting an avocado is removing the pit. Nearly 9,000 Americans injure themselves each year while trying to prepare an avocado for eating, landing them in the emergency room for hand injuries. The most common removal method (and cause of injury) is to slice an avocado in half, then impale the pit with the knife and twist to remove it. While this practice may be very common, stabbing a sharp knife towards a small pit — with your other hand holding the avocado steady — can cause you to miss, with disastrous consequences.

You can remove a pit much more easily and safely by slicing an avocado in half lengthwise, then slicing the half that contains the pit. This exposes the pit so you can pluck it out by hand. With these easy tips for preparing an avocado in the most safe and efficient way, you can move on to dicing, slicing, or mashing it for the best guacamole.