No Australian summer is complete without mangoes. And though the season is in its early days, prices are cheap at about $2 to $3 each – and the quality is good.
Whether you like to eat them sweet, savoury or somewhere in between, here’s how to make the most of the season’s start.
1. Benjamina Ebuehi’s mango and Tajín semifreddo
Semifreddo – Italian for “half frozen” – is a dessert to keep in your back pocket (and in the back of your freezer) as the weather warms up. The combination of Tajín – a popular Mexican condiment made up of ground chillies, lime and sea salt – plus mango makes for sweet, sour and spicy results.
2. Ravneet Gill’s mango-creme brulee
A tropical twist on a classic French dessert. Gill’s recipe calls for 200ml mango puree, but swap this for the flesh of about two mangoes, blended in a food processor or blender. If you don’t have a blowtorch to make the telltale brulee top, you can use a grill – though Gill recommends cooling the brulee before placing it in the fridge.
3. Thomasina Miers’ Thai prawn salad with green mango and peanuts
Thai salads are known for a “heady combination of flavours”, Miers writes, and of course she’s right: see the citrus tang from the lime, the fresh grassiness of the mint and coriander, the intoxicating from-the-sea funk of fish sauce. It might be possible to make the dressing in a food processor or blender, but Miers recommends using a mortar and pestle – a big one. It’s “the secret to many a great sauce”, she writes.
4. Yotam Ottolenghi’s mango and squash atchar
To make your mangoes last the distance. Atchar, or achar, is a type of pickle eaten throughout south-east Asia, and is an excellent side for any dish that needs a sharp-sweet contrast. Ottolenghi’s version combines mango with another orange friend – butternut pumpkin – plus green beans and warm spices. It’s an excellent weekend project – and your efforts will keep well, refrigerated, for three months.
5. Nigel Slater’s mango passionfruit fool
Whipped cream, yoghurt, pureed mangoes and passionfruit – is this the perfect lazy person’s summer dessert? Passionfruit can be swapped out for raspberries, which are affordable and available at the moment. Find the ripest mangoes you can, writes Slater: they should be “giving to the touch, deeply fragrant, and maybe with a golden bead of juice already appearing at their stalks”.
6. Riaz Phillips’ Caribbean fish, mango and okra curry
Fish and mango are a common pairing in curries from Indonesia, the Carribean and India; and here the magic ingredient is okra, which thickens the curry. Phillips says in the Caribbean this dish is commonly made with gilbaka or hassar; but he’s suggested other fish varieties which are more readily available in Australia, such as red snapper or kingfish. And where Slater calls for a super-ripe mango for his fool, it’s a hard green mango you’ll need to source for this curry – green mangoes can be sourced from south-east Asian grocers.
7. Yotam Ottolenghi’s black chickpea and mango curry with bombay mix
Another recipe that calls for a green, unripe mango – it’s added to this curry in the last 15 minutes of cooking, and simmered until it’s “soft but still holds its shape” – a physical state many of us should aspire to. Black chickpeas can be replaced with regular chickpeas, though the former are nuttier and firmer, Ottolenghi writes. The finishing touch is bombay mix – an Indian snack mix including fried chickpea flour noodles, nuts, and fried lentils – which Ottolenghi makes from scratch.
8. Yasmin Newman’s watermelon ice with mango, coconut jelly and ube jam
Inspired by the Japanese shaved ice dessert kakigori, halo-halo is arguably the most loved dessert of the Philippines, writes Australian-Filipina food critic Yasmin Newman. Watermelon granita, or watermelon shaved ice, is topped with tropical fruits including mango, starfruit and lychees, coconut milk, ube jam and edible flowers. It is a riotous rainbow of refreshment.
