How To Cut A Mango, Plus A Recipe For Sweet Mango Butter!

The Tools: A knife, cutting board, dinner spoon and a ripe mango

STEP 1: CHOOSE THE PERFECT MANGO

When choosing a mango, you are looking for softness and some give in the skin. If your thumb impression stays indented in the skin, your mango is too ripe. On the other hand, you don't want a rock hard mango because it won't be as sweet or have as fresh of a flavor. The skin color doesn't matter when choosing a mango, as it does not change to indicate whether it's ready to eat or not.

STEP 2: START TO SLICE

Place the stem of the mango down on the cutting board. You are going to cut away the mango meat from the large almond-shaped pit. Place your knife half an inch to the side of the highest point of the mango and make one clean cut down, trying to avoid the pit. Repeat this on the remaining three sides.

STEP 3: CUT CUBES AND SCOOP

Being careful to not pierce the skin, cut lines from top to bottom, then left to right making cubes with each section.  You can invert the mango skin to make a fancy presentation or scoop out the cubes with a spoon and enjoy!

 

Homemade Mango Butter-yields 1 cup

This Mango Butter is the ultimate fruit compound butter! It tastes like spreadable mango, has hints of lime zest, and is perfectly sweet. Spread on everything from breakfast toast and muffins, to fish and seafood!

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 Stick (4 tbsp) of softened unsalted butter

  • 1 tsp raw honey

  • zest of 1 lime

  • 1 ripe mango, peeled and cut into cubes

How To:

  1. Using paper towel or a clean cloth, squeeze the mango pieces to remove as much excess moisture as possible.

  2. In a food processor, pulse the butter, honey, and lime zest together until incorporated. Slowly start pulsing and blending the mango pieces to the butter, 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time. You might need to scrape the sides and bottom of the food processor a few times to ensure the mango pieces are getting well incorporated.

  3. Scoop out the mango honey butter and transfer to a serving container. The butter is ready to serve but if you want to firm it up, refrigerate for 30-60 minutes before serving.

Peggy Van Cleef