Friday, July 08, 2005

Mangoes with minted sugar

I love flavoured sugar, and vanilla sugar is one of my favourites - the smell of vanilla is just so homely yet heavenly. And today I came across a cooking tip in a baking book which I had borrowed from my mother-in-law. It called for pounding mint with granulated sugar to make minted sugar, which could be sprinkled over fruit such as pineapple. well, I just HAD to try that! (It tastes lovely by itself, too - I couldnt resist trying it out.)

I didnt have any pineapple, but there was this not-quite-ripe mango in my fridge, which I had cut up out of sheer impatience and then regretted the haste, because it was a fair bit more sour than it was sweet, and also not particularly soft in texture.

So I decided to try my newly minted sugar (to coin a phrase, haha) on it. The mango pieces tasted absolutely wonderful sprinkled with the minted sugar, I must say... the sourness almost but not quite negated by the sugar's sweetness, with the freshness of the pounded mint the last thing to register on the tongue.

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Then I wondered what it would be like to roast the mango pieces. So I did. They turned out quite nice, and the roasting made the pieces a lot softer. For some reason, it also seemed to take away the sourness. I guess if the mango had been riper and softer, the pieces might have become almost mushy in the oven. But mine were quite hard to start with, so it wasnt a disaster. I waited for the pieces to cool to a mouth-friendly warmth, then sprinkled them with more minted sugar and gobbled 'em ALL up!

I do have to say, though, that though the roasted mangoes tasted nice enough, they're best ripe and unroasted. Especially with mint sugar.

Recipe for: Mangoes with minted sugar

Ingredients:

1 large mango (ripe but not mushy-soft), cut into inch-size pieces (de-skinned if the skin is bitter)
2 tbsp granulated sugar
10-15 large fresh leaves of peppermint, spearmint and/or plain mint (I used a mix of all three)

Method:

Pound the sugar and mint in a mortar-and-pestle until the leaves are well broken up and incorporated with the sugar.

Sprinkle over the cut mango pieces in a bowl, give the pieces a good shake to distribute the mint sugar evenly, and serve.

6 comments:

pk said...

Very unique recipe. Heard grilled pineapple are very tasty so u can also try grilling the mango pieces ;)

Unknown said...

:)sounds really nice... you surely made me want to gobble it up when you wrote thus... :)

tanvi said...

that sounds great- i like the idea of mango and mint.

Anonymous said...

Hello Shaymala,

I'm Raji from UK.

Love all your recipies.

I was wondering if you could help..
Had been to Birmingham and ended up buying lot of methi leaves.. other than chapathis, can you suggest some ways of using them..

BTW, are u one of the advisors in ammas.com?

Many thanks,

Raji

Anonymous said...

Hi Raji, sure can suggest a couple of recipes. I'll put 'em up here in a few days... unless you give me your email address, in which case I'll email them to you.

Where do you live, by the way?

PS. Yes, I was an advisor on amma's... still am, just about!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your resposne shyamala..

was out of town this weekend.. got to see ur msg only now..

I live in sheffield..

my email id is velammal_d@yahoo.co.uk

take care,
Raji