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.

Spur of the Moment Pizza!

~  Menu  ~

Sudden Pizza

Glass of Red

What a gorgeous day it was yesterday – not as gorgeous as my Real Man thought (see below) but seriously lovely.  Because of this I did very little in the food/cooking/writing department.

After breakfast I was going to wash up and then get stuck in, honest, but he suggested we go for a walk which seemed far more attractive, especially where the washing up was concerned.  The lanes are full of blackthorn and we saw a few bluebells and some valerian and ….  I dunno, all sorts of stuff in flower.

Look at that sky!

We went to the beach, Porthcothan Bay, and wandered about talking to dogs and remarking on the weather when suddenly my man said he was going for a plodge (link) and then, true to his word, he did.  He looked a bit of a nancy boy skipping about in the waves holding his shorts up so they wouldn’t get wet but he soon dispelled this impression by stripping off down to his nix and going swimming!  I’ll reiterate April 10^th, England, swimming in the sea with no wetsuit, real man!!! 

When we came back I really fancied a pizza but didn’t have time to make my lovely easy pizza dough, even though it is very easy.  

Instead I used my old fallback dough that I use for everything.  I used it for the dumplings in the Mince and Dumplings the other day.  It is basically a scone dough but is equally good for dumplings, doughnuts, American biscuits, English biscuits, griddle cakes, rock buns, doughnuts, cobblers, turnovers and flatbreads.  It’s so useful I wrote a book about it ~ The Secret Life of Scones.

To be frank, however, it’s nothing like a pizza base but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good topped with pizza type toppings.  So I made the dough and then what? 




No tomato stuff so I spread it with the end of a jar of caramelised red onions I had in the fridge, then some mozzarella that needed using up and lastly a few wafer thin slices of parma ham.  A few minutes in a hot oven and there was my delicious sudden lunch.  My real man had bread and cheese.  

In the evening we went for a short walk out to the cliffs at Bedruthan Steps just because we can – we are so lucky!

It was a little hazy last night (must have been a heat haze) but you get the gist.