Mango Tango

I have been experimenting with mango salsas over the last couple of days. Yes, we are still (valiantly) trying to eat and use up all the mangoes that came off the two trees in the garden over the last few weeks. I thought I would take up a suggestion Wena gave me and use it with fish.

The idea was to make a Thai-style mango salsa. After all, mangoes are an integral part of Thai cuisine – they are used raw in salads, added to cooked dishes and are a popular ingredient for Thai desserts. The sweet and tangy flavors of mangoes are a sublime match for the sweet, sour, salty, spicy tones of Thai food. I wanted to create the sweet, sour, tangy flavors, maybe with a slight Chinese touch, and match it with a simple steamed or fried fish. It had to be quick, it had to be easy. I also decided I would prefer a salsa with some “gravy” to it, rather than a standard “dry” salsa.

Japanese cucumber (unpeeled), onion or shallots (I tried both, and both work very well, with just a slight difference in sweetness between the two) and carrots were cut into thin strips. These were combined and soaked in a marinade of vinegar, salt and sugar. The vegetables were left to marinade for a good few hours, to allow all the flavors to meld. Just before putting the salsa together, some sweet Thai chilli sauce was added to the vegetables.

The mangoes were also cut into thin strips, and set aside. I didn’t want to add this to the vegetable marinade as I suspected the mangoes might go too mushy from sitting in the vinegar. Also, I wanted to keep the taste of the mangoes very pure.

Separately, some Chinese plum sauce (approximately 6 tbsps?) and a little hot water was put into a frying pan, and seasoned with Thai fish sauce (nam pla) to taste. As the sauces came to a boil, a little cornstarch solution (cornstarch dissolved in a little hot water) was added to thicken the sauce to the desired consistency. Once the sauce came to a boil again, it was removed from the heat and the vinegar-marinated vegetables, together with the mangoes, were added and mixed well .

The colors were beautiful – vibrant yellow mixed with green, white and orange, with specks of red from the chilli sauce. On hindsight, perhaps I should have also added strips of fresh red chilli for even more vibrant colors. I had been wary of making the salsa too spicy, but I think it would have been fine with some chilli strips, adding a different layer of flavors on top of the chilli sauce seasoning. In fact, I should have added more chilli sauce than I did.

I served the salsa on both steamed and pan-fried whole pomfret. I would have preferred using fish fillets, but I didn’t have any in the freezer. I think the salsa probably worked better with the pan-fried fish than the steamed. Either way though, the flavors were great! Very appetizing… tangy, sweet and very slightly spicy. Really shiok!

Another idea occurred to me… this would work great with deep-fried battered fish nuggets or fish fillets (a la fish & chips). I think a beer batter with this might be interesting or a Japanese tempura-inspired batter would be nice too. And instead of a “watery” salsa, I would dice the vegetables, marinade them in the vinegar mixture, add the chilli sauce, plum sauce and fish sauce (but no water), before adding them to plain yogurt, and using it as a dip.

Hmmm… well, there is still half a carton box of mangoes sitting in the pantry… and they do have to be used up before they become over-ripe... hahaha… I think the family could be quite sick of mangoes by the time I’m through!

Happy mango tango-ing!

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