Julie mango or starch

Listening to the radio a few days ago made me chuckle, the conversation was all about mango, everybody’s favourite mango, and the best ways to enjoy it.

The mighty mango gives us one season each year, two if we are lucky. The types are many, starch, Julie, cutlass, donkey stone, long, rose, doux-doux, calabash, apple mango, turpentine, La Brea gyal, paw paw and sugar gyal mango, to name a few.

The national mango board reports over 70 varieties in TT. The conversations got more animated when callers gave their opinions on which is perfect for the best chow and the recipes that produce such. The responses were too many and too varied to mention here!

We need no excuse to devour a ripe mango on sight, we have perfected the art of biting into a ripe mango, tearing off the skin and sinking our teeth into the ripe flesh, sucking on the juice with little or none running down our arm. We enjoy mango in red mango, anchar, kutchela and curry. We make juice, ice cream and sorbet.

My favourite mango is Julie with starch coming in a close second. Have you ever noticed eating a starch mango there is more juice than flesh, not to mention the strings that hang out of our teeth after! Julies cut like cheese, and are fabulous in recipes, they bake up great, are perfect for ice-creams and sorbets, jams and salads and can be used at any stage of ripeness, and no strings!

Julie mangoes also freeze very well, so if you have an excess you can slice the flesh off the seed and freeze for use later in the year.

Here are some of my favourite ways to use mangoes.

Spicy Caribbean Mango Cabbage Slaw

• 3 cups shredded cabbage, red and

green mixed or green

• 2 large Julie mangoes, half-ripe,

peeled and sliced into ½-inch

wide slices

• 1 carrot, peeled and grated

• 1 red onion, peeled and cut into

slivers

• ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro or

chadon beni

• 1 jalapeno pepper, cut into slivers

(optional)

Dressing

• 2 tbs fresh lime juice

• 1 tbs rice vinegar

• 1½ tbs honey

• 1 tsp freshly-ground black pepper

Place all the salad ingredients in a mixing bowl, except the cilantro.

Mix the dressing ingredients, combine with salad and toss well.

Cover well and refrigerate before serving, add cilantro and toss before serving.

Serves 4-6

Mango pineapple jam

• 1 large pineapple, 4-5 lbs

• 1 lime

• 6 Julie mangoes, ripe, peeled and flesh

removed and chopped.

• granulated sugar

Peel pineapples and grate or chop in food processor.

Place in a large pot and cover with water, cut lime into half and add to pot, bring mixture to a boil, and cook for 5 minutes, stir in mango.

Remove from heat and measure your mixture, then for every cup of pineapple-mango mixture add ¾-cup granulated sugar.

Return mixture to pot and boil then simmer for about 20 minutes until mixture is thick, or registers 186 on a candy thermometer.

Spoon into sterilised jars.

Makes about 4 to 14-oz jars jam.

Mango Passion Fruit Sorbet with Lemongrass

5 cups water

3 cup sugar

1 stalk fresh lemon grass bruised and cut into 2-inch pieces

2 cups mango pulp (about 8 Julie mangoes)

1 cup passion fruit pulp (about 6 passion fruit)

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

Boil water and sugar with lemongrass until sugar is dissolved. Cool and strain.

Stir in lime juice, mango and passion fruit pulp. Chill well.

Pour into an ice-cream freezer and process according to manufacturer’s directions.

Makes about 6 cups

To make passion fruit pulp, slice fruit into half, scoop out pulp-covered seeds, place in a blender jar and process until liquefied, add a very small amount of water if needed, do not strain.

Serves 8 - 10

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