Tonight's Mango Menu

Tonight I finally pulled myself together enough to battle the growing mound of mangoes in the kitchen. I think nearly 10 more dropped from the tree since 9am this morning.

I decided not to use all the mangoes from today, just the large bowl - so about 35. I have been searching the web for different mango recipes, and there's some interesting ones out there. Mango chutney and mango sauce look pretty good. I'm going to give them a try soon.

Today I couldn't get around to the hassle cooking a major mango fantasy - although last night I pulled together a pretty tasty mango chicken with soy sauce (if I may toot my own mango horn). Sam (wife) thinks I should come up with a mango bbq sauce of some kind.

Back to tonight. Well, we'd used up all our mango puree / ice cream yesterday so I decided to replenish our stocks. So after peeling (it's more like flaying) 35 mangoes, I blended and have a full medium-sized tuppaware (or Lucky Supermarket equivalent) of mango puree. Probably close to 2.5 litres. I'll freeze it tonight.

But I decided I couldn't really stop there. I had to enjoy the fruit of my labour (!) and asked Sam if a mango smoothie was in order. She readily agreed. I spooned about a cup and a half of mango puree back into the blender, another cup and a half of chilled milk (the carton straight out of the fridge, that is) and added my secret masala spice mix - about a teaspoon and a half - and blended till it looked mixed up well and good.

The result? Well, in my opinion, it was a rather muted flavour. Not the full-bodied sweetness of a straight mango smoothie, and the spices started off with a kick and then faded a little. I think the spice mix needs a little work. Perhaps just stick with cardamom.