Delicious Mango Recipes and Ideas

When I was in my 20s lots of new-to-the-UK ingredients were appearing; avocado, aubergine, chillies and so on. Exciting times!

 One day, after an interesting shop, I said to my Mum ...

“Have you ever had a mango”

To which she replied ...

“No, Suzy, all my men stayed”

I miss my Mummy.

I recently had occasion to fiddle with a mango as part of an article I am writing for Men’s Health Magazine (the article comes out in the Jan/Feb edition, therefore in December, and is about Christmas leftovers).  

This put me in mind of times gone by when, living and cheffing on the beautiful little island of Tortola in the Caribbean; mangoes grew all over the place so were frequently on my menu.

Simple Ideas for Mangoes

Here are some of the things I did with this luscious fruit …

~   Added mango to seafood and chicken salads.
~   Chargrilled slices of fresh mango and served them together with my Seafood Mixed Grill.
~   Added to fruit salads – the best kind of fruit salad in which to incorporate mango is one of tropical fruits tossed with freshly squeezed lime juice and a little Chilli Syrup (the syrup recipe is here).
~   Added diced mango to breakfast cereals and to yogurt.
~   Tossed with sugar and lime juice (and sometimes chilli syrup) to top Pavlova.
~   Shredded under ripe mango into coleslaw.
~   My friend Roberta used to make a wicked Mango Jam. 

Mango Recipes

Mango Vinaigrette

75ml of fresh mango purée
2 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
60ml olive oil
60ml cider vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

~   Whisk together the first 5 ingredients and season to taste.  If too thick dilute with a little warm water.  

24 more ideas and recipes for vinaigrettes here. 

Spicy Mango Salsa 

2 tablespoons fresh mango
2 tablespoons red onion or spring onion
2 tablespoons red pepper
1 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
1 teaspoon minced fresh chilli
juice of one lime
salt to taste

~   Finely dice everything but the coriander, chilli, lime juice and salt.
~   Mix all together but the salt then taste and add salt till it tastes right.
~   Chill till needed.

I often served this with seared fresh tuna.

Sweet and Spicy Mango Dip

175g fresh mango – coarsely chopped
80ml thick coconut milk (tip)
juice of half a lime
2 or so teaspoons honey
a drip or two of Caribbean hot sauce
salt

~   Purée together the first three ingredients.
~   Add honey, hot sauce and salt till it tastes delicious.
~   Chill till needed.

Simple Sweet Potato & Mango Curry – serves 4 as a side dish

½ tbsp cooking oil
2 tsp mild curry paste
1 medium sweet potato – peeled and diced
1 firm mango – peeled and diced to the same size and the sweet potato

~   Cook the curry paste in the oil over medium heat for 3 minutes.
~   Add the sweet potato, stir to coat with the paste and fry stirring frequently for 15 minutes till almost tender.
~   Add the mango and continue cooking and stirring till all is tender.  If anything is sticking add a splash of hot water.

Mango Daiquiri for 2

½ a ripe mango, peeled and diced

juice of 1 lime
60ml golden rum
crushed ice
maybe a teaspoon of the chilli syrup mentioned above!

~   Fill two tall glasses with crushed ice.
~   Purée together all the rest of the ingredients and pour over the ice.

Mango-Lime Ice Cream – serves 4-6

The fruit flavour in this is so fresh and sparkling that the ice cream tastes almost fizzy!

2 large ripe mangoes – peeled and coarsely chopped
2 washed and dried limes
100g sugar
500ml double cream
200g condensed milk

~   Finely grate the zest (just the green skin, none of the white pith underneath) of the limes and set aside.
~   Squeeze the juice into a small pan and stir in the sugar.
~   Bring to a boil stirring till the sugar has dissolved then simmer together for 3 or 4 minutes.
~   Add the reserved zest to the simmering lime juice and cook another minute or so.
~   Add the chopped mango, return to a simmer and cook until you have a bit of a syrupy situation going on – about 3 minutes
~   Mash or purée as you prefer – for a chunky or smooth ice.
~   Cool completely.
~   Whisk the cream till thick.
~   Fold in the condensed milk and then the mango sauce.
~   Freeze.

This recipe is made using my Genius Ice Cream method which I developed whilst working in Tortola. It was difficult to get good ready-made ice cream there and ditto for ice cream machines. Naturally, however, in all that delicious hot sunshine iced desserts were much in demand and I managed, indeed more than managed to come up with the goods without using an ice cream machine. I wasn’t messing with ice and salt either!  Read more about this genius no-churn ice cream method here.

See here for how to prepare a mango.

In Other News …

We saw this very informative sign whilst walking on the stunning North Cornwall Coastal Path the other day – I'm sharing as I thought it might be useful to others.

Mango Jam Recipe and a Handy Hint

I am sitting on the deck of our friend’s, Bob & Roberta of recent banana fame, house doing this post – don’t be jealous! Although there is good reason to be, this is the view …

The air is full of the sound of bananakeets, pretty little birds of the eponymous song “Yellow Bird High in Banana Tree”, who are feeding on the sugar water left out for them. 

Sometimes a humming bird whirs up and takes a drink too.  

The temperature is, I don’t know, 80 ish but lovely and breezy so just about perfect.  Oh .. and Bob has just brought me some fresh coconut off his tree, sweet and delicious.

Its great meeting up with all my old friends.  Bob & Roberta, Ian and Kathy and Lynne and Lash and lots of others.  Lynne is Canadian and her husband, Lash, is from here.  They run a bar called Dove Love and Tuesday nights are Canadian Night.  This means that if you have heard of Canada or ever met a Canadian you are eligible to go along for a really quirky, good food, lots of chat and drink sort of evening.  It felt so much like old times it was as if I’d never been away.  The very fact that ex-pats here have chosen to live on a small Caribbean island means that are out of the norm and of course and that’s the way I like it!  Glad to see you – you bunch of weirdos.

I haven’t had any lunch at home yet but breakfast is another matter.  Roberta, is a great cook, especially in the homely baking and preserving type stuff.  Yesterday we had homemade “English” muffins (in England we just call them muffins) with homemade maple syrup from Bob's cousin and today we had Roberta's lovely homemade bread with her homemade preserves; Pear and Anise, Mango Jam and Chokecherry Jelly.   All three are excellent.  

I have heard of chokecherry of but never seen one.  It is a sour wild cherry but when cooked up with sugar and made into jelly it is excellent stuff.  The mango jam, however, is my favourite so here’s her recipe, I’m afraid it’s in American so you’ll have to do the conversions yourself, sorry!

                                                                                      

Mango Jam Recipe - with handy hint ...

5 cups fresh mango flesh – coarsely chopped

6 cups white sugar

1 teaspoon of butter

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Half a cup Certo pectin (I wasn't sure this was available in the UK but looked it up
online and it is)

~   Mix together the mango, sugar, lemon juice and butter in a large non-reactive pot and bring to a boil, stirring till the sugar has dissolved.

~   Turn down the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

~   Return to a boil for 1 minutes, add the pectin, and boil for another single minute but no more.

~   Set aside.

~   Have ready clean warm dry jam jars. 

~   Spoon the jam into the jars.

~   Cool, cover and refrigerate till needed.

The handy hint is the adding of butter to the jam. Like the famous pouring of oil on troubled waters this stops the jam frothing up and boiling over and there is no need to remove scum from the surface as, according to my friend, there isn't any.

Hopefully we shall be moving onto our boat tomorrow but there is a bit of a problem – some git seems to have stolen our dingy, so its not complete paradise. 

So there, just a quickie whilst I can borrow Bob and Roberta’s internet connection.  I’ll do it again as soon as poss.  Here’s a nice pic from the airplane for your delectation.