mangoes

Mango season in Mexico is one of my favorite times of the year. It comes in the early spring, after tangerine season, when there’s nothing enticing on the market shelves except for hit-and-miss mameys and round, nubby guavas that looked better in the winter.

It’s like everyone’s waiting, and then boom, there they are — mango wedges sold in plastic cups on the street corners, mangos piled up at the tianguis, an army advancing on the rest of the produce. There’s nothing like that first slice from a vendor’s knife. It’s wet and sweet in a way that almost seems unreal.

A few months ago, I had dinner at Azul Condesa, Ricard Muñoz Zurita’s new restaurant. A special menu had ben devoted to mangoes, with all sorts of plates containing the fruit. My favorite was the mango pico de gallo, served in a large glass. It was sweet and spicy and tart, and Crayton and I annihilated it in minutes.

Lucky for me, I ended up finding a mango pico de gallo recipe inside Zurita’s cookbook, Salsas Mexicanas. (If you read Spanish, this is a great book to have.) The recipe, interestingly, calls for fish sauce, which creates a delightful Thai-type of flavor. Zurita says in the book that he got the recipe from a Filipina chef studying in Mexico.

If you don’t have any fish sauce, the pico is still quite good on its own. I imagine it’d be great with a spritz of lime. Just make sure you have fresh mangoes. Or you could probably even try it with other sweet fruits, like pineapple.

Mango Pico de Gallo
from Salsas Mexicanas by Ricardo Muñoz Zurita
Serves 4 as an appetizer

Note: The original recipe calls for manila mangoes, which are prized in Mexico for their sweetness. Other types of mangoes would probably work as well, as long as they’re mature. On the fish sauce, I’d add a little bit at a time and taste as you go along. The two tablespoons adds a recognizable fishy flavor, but it mellowed out a bit as the pico sat at room temperature.

Ingredients

1 very ripe beefsteak tomato, diced, with the skin and seeds
2 tablespoons of minced onion
1/4 cup of finely chopped cilantro, including stems
1 tablespoon of minced chile serrano (this is about one chile)
2 manila mangoes, about 250 grams each, peeled and cut into roughly two-centimeter cubes
2 tablespoons fish sauce* (see note)

Directions

Mix the first five ingredients together in a bowl, and add the fish sauce. Taste for either more fish sauce or perhaps a little salt. (I didn’t use any.) Serve with tostadas.