Avocado Toast with Grapefruit, Chile and Parsley

I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about the point behind Fork My Life. My tagline reads “I Eat + I Cook + You Read = You Likey.” This is the essence of what I do when creating posts for my blog. I eat somewhere, get inspired, go in my kitchen and re-create it, write about it and then you read it. Then, you likey in the end.

A few weeks ago, I was able to attend a preview of The Winchester’s new private dining room. The Winchester is a kick-ass, hidden gem in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood in Chicago. They’re open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and feature chef-driven, clean and seasonal food. I love their green juices in the morning with their insanely addictive Belgian waffles, the shaved Brussels sprout salad for lunch and a comforting plate of handmade pasta for dinner. Did I mention they make one mean cortado?

Their new private dining room, called “The Sun Room” is a gorgeous, open space to host any event in an intimate setting. Besides previewing the beautiful space, I got to sample the food (best part). One of my all-time favorite dishes is their Avocado Toast with Grapefruit, Chile and Parsley.

Now the Avocado Toast has been all the rage for a while. I started making Avocado Toast when I was in college (and that was a while ago). My version back then wasn’t as beautiful and complex as The Winchester’s. It was just avocado schmeared on toast topped with salt and pepper. On the occasion I would squeeze some lemon juice on top. Fancy, I know.

The Winchester takes their Avocado Toast to another level and serves it with grapefruit segments, sliced Fresno chiles, parsley and crushed pink peppercorns. I pretty much copied the entire recipe except I left off the pink peppercorns. Since the recipe is so simple and there are very few ingredients make sure you buy the highest quality.

To start you’ll need avocados. You want to make sure they are ripe but not mushy. I like to leave the avocado mixture really chucky. You want to see big chunks of avocado when you spread it on the toast. You’ll also add some lime juice to the avocado mixture. I love the acidity of the lime juice and always want to add more. Hold off! Don’t forget that it’s going to be topped with grapefruit, which will add additional acidity.

Speaking of grapefruits, you’ll need to make segments or in the fancy culinary terms we would say supreme. Essentially, you are cutting around the bitter membrane so you just have the sweet flesh to enjoy. Below is a diagram of how to segment an grapefruit. First you cut the bottom and top off the grapefruit. Then you cut the peel off around the grapefruit. Then you cut out the segments in between the membrane. Voilà! If this seems like too much of a pain the ass, then you can just cut slices of the grapefruit (no biggie).

So you’ve mashed avocado and segmented your grapefruit. Now it’s time to build the Avocado Toast. Slice the bread. Toast the bread. Top with avocado. Artfully place grapefruit on top and garnish with chile and parsley. Sprinke with salt. Boom! Avocado Toast!

The best part about the Avocado Toast is that it can be enjoyed all day long. It’s a perfect start to your day, a wonderful meatless option for lunch and a gorgeous appetizer for dinner.