Lately I've been in a cooking rut. It seems I always make some variation on the theme of 5 or 6 staple dishes. I try and mix it up, but the general lack of ingredients and the horrid problems with stock control in all the grocery stores and markets in the city make it tough. Today I'd had enough. I decided it was high time for some serious experimenting.
I took my inspiration from the Mexicans, who love the combination of mango and chile. I had a boyfriend in college who was from Juarez and would make the 4-hour drive home each weekend just to stock up on Mexican candy, his favorite being mango lollipops coated in red chile powder that came with a satchet of salt attached to the stick to sprinkle on the candy as one licked through the layers of spicy and sweet. I tried these lollipops once and thought they were absolutely disgusting. My favorites were the logs made of condensed milk and shredded coconut, dyed red and green to mimic the Mexican flag.
Today, however, as I sat in the kitchen trying to put some not-quite-ripe mangoes to good use, I decided to revisit the flavor combination I'd so soundly rejected years ago. The prospect of fresh ingredients, as opposed to a processed confection sticky from sitting in the sun in some streetcorner vendor's tray, was much more appealing. Feeling the creative kitchen juices flow, I made the following salad:
2 almost-ripe mangoes, peeled and cut into cubes
2 tsp chopped fresh cilantro (coriander)
1 lime, juiced
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp New Mexico red chile powder, mild
1 tsp red pepper flakes (vary according to taste)
As a main dish, I stir-fried some pork cubes and added a few spoonfulls of curry powder. It was delicious, but I do admit being partial to sweet/spicy and meat/fruit combinations. Even Rico liked the mango salad, although he ate it more as a chutney while mine was piled high over half the plate.
Maybe I should get my hands on one of those Mexican lollies the next time I'm in the US and give it another go...
7 comments:
i love fruit in salads (though i gotta admit, i hate coriander but maybe it would work with basil? Hmmm...)
i know what you mean about food-boredom - i bought a cookery book today to try out some new recipes (i am *so* turning into my mother the older i get)
and is it okay that your post about the kitties really made me chuckle? ;-) they must be driving you up the wall! xo
I love the mango/chili combination. It's quite popular in the Far East. Good for you for experimenting and not being deterred by local limitations!
Mango and anything is fine by me. Reminds me that I should start getting a little creative in the kitchen too (i.e., actually do some cooking). Enjoy the combinations!
ali...don't boter trying the candies again...mango/pepper chutney IS fabulous...but those lollipops? You have to grow up eating them to like them, I think! We used to give them to people in college as a cruel joke...
I remember my brother trying on of those lollipops with the chile powder and salt. I hated it! He loved it :)
Do you have yams there? Yams and pork are a good combination. We sometimes have pork chops and yams together. Mango salsa is good too!
I only tried a few spicy/sweet combinations when tasting a few Malaysian dishes a while back. I am not a huge fan, but it wasn't half bad.
Hmmm, sounds delicious. Then again, I also like the sweet/ sour/ chilli combos.
It's definitely the eastern thing.
Some friends of ours are doing this new thing this year to spice up their cooking - every second week, it's her turn to make something totally new and then two weeks later, it's his turn. So far so good!
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