A Ripe Mango Is Worth a Thousand Words
So rather than writing a poem I made a tart, spicy, nuoc-cham-doused mango salad.
AS I HAVE MENTIONED EARLIER, MANY TIMES, I have a bit of a problem with over-purchasing fruits and vegetables. They’re so pretty! Why would I leave them behind? Again and again, I bring them home only to realize there’s no room on my kitchen counters, which, of course, are usually covered with a virtual farm stand.
This is exactly how a woman might end up dedicating her remaining years on the planet to salad—and how I became a salad newslettrist. I’m just glad it happened after the internet was invented rather than during the Victorian era. Otherwise, I’d be tying my handwritten love letters to salad in lavender velvet ribbons and tucking them away from society’s harsh gaze in a wooden bureau in a dark room. (Imagine opening that drawer a hundred years later.)
This week, I have too many mangoes because I got a mango bee in my bonnet; this means no other fruit will do. So I have found myself racing the clock against their ripening, which is a slow trot compared to an avocado or banana race but keeps you on your toes anyway. You can still find yourself with mushy fruit, which means it’s time for smoothies.
For your information, here is a chart from the Culinary Institute of America on the stages of mango ripeness.
When my current batch was perfect, just past Stage 4, I decided on a salad that would also dispatch some of the not-bad tomatoes (see our discussion of not-bad tomatoes tomatoes here) populating my kitchen countertops: a pint of grape tomatoes, a little box of brown kumatos, and a few stray “heirloom” tomatoes. I chose the grape tomatoes, but any of them would have been delicious as would a mix.
I usually cut up mangoes using the classic cubing method; this time I wanted larger pieces, so I removed the “cheeks” then peeled each with a paring knife and sliced them lengthwise. You can do it either way, but since I did want mango to be the dominant bite I decided on long petal-like slices, which are also nice if you decide to get jazzy and create a composed flower pattern on the plate.
