Enjoy a taste of the Caribbean with this simple salad, dressed with a sweet mango puree and zingy lime juice. An ideal accompaniment to spicy jerk dishes.
This recipe is for a nice cooling salad, which works well against the fruity heat of jerk dishes. But if you like, you can add a pinch of chilli powder for a bit of heat, or some alliums like chopped chives, spring onions or red onion for a bit of bite.
Tips & Tricks
- Remove the seeds from the salad vegetables – these dilute the flavour and waterlog the salad
- Add dressing just before serving – this stops the salad leaves from getting limp and soggy
- Toss with your hands – this is the most effective way to venly coat the leaves in dressing
4
Mango Salad
Ingredients
for the salad:
- 1 ripe mango (ends should yield slightly when pressed)
- juice of 1 lime
- 1/2 cucumber
- 4 tomatoes
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 1 iceberg lettuce
for the dressing:
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 1/2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Make the mango puree. Cut off both cheeks of the mango, as close to the pit as possible. Place the two halves cut-side up. Cut cross-hatches down to the peel, but not through it. Turn inside out and peel off the cubes. Trim off any extra flesh left around the pit. Place the cut mango pieces in the small bowl of a food processor with half the lime juice. Blitz until smooth.
- Set a fine-mesh sieve above a bowl and pour in the mango pulp. Force the puree through the sieve by pushing down with the back of the fork. Taste the mango puree in the bowl, and add more lime juice if necessary. You can make this ahead, as the puree will keep for up to 5 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator. (Refrigerate the pulp that is left behind in the sieve, and enjoy a no-freeze mango ‘sorbet’ another time.)
- Make the salad. Peel the cucumber and chop in half lengthways. Gouge out the watery seeds with a teaspoon and discard. De-seed the tomatoes by chopping in half around the equator. Then hold over a waste bowl and gently squeeze out the seeds, using your thumb to gouge out any stubborn seeds. Slice off the top of the bell pepper and discard. Quarter lengthways, and cut out the seeds and membrane.
- Chop the cucumber, tomato and bell pepper into roughly 1 cm cubes. Combine in a bowl. Pour over the mango puree, and stir with a spoon until evenly coated.
- Shred the iceberg lettuce. Stack several leaves at a time on top of each other, and roll into a tight cigar shape. Keeping hold of the cigar with one hand, slice finely with a large knife.
- Make the dressing. Combine the salad dressing ingredients in a jam jar (olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and black pepper), and shake vigorously until blended.
- Place the shredded lettuce in a large serving bowl. Pour over the dressing just before serving, and toss until evenly coated using your hands. Make a well in the centre, and spoon in the mango mix.
