I’ve been trying to keep up with the green mangoes, and the ripe, that our tree continues to produce. I’ve made several recipes I discovered during a quick research trip on the internet, and for the most part they have proved to be delicious! Two exceptionally good recipes were Chicken in Green Mango and Fish Curry with Green Mango. I made several alterations to both, allowing for substitutions on a couple of ingredients that I couldn’t get here, and I will post the recipes to the right under What’s Cooking? when I finish making changes to them.

The other interesting recipe I tried making was Mango Pickle, my favourite condiment. I’ve been buying East Indian-produced jars of this stuff for years, and just the thought of it causes me to start salivating. If I could produce a reasonable facsimile at home, Wow!, would I be happy.

Since the mangoes were free for the picking, and the rest of the ingredients were mainly spices and vegetable oil, this was not an expensive recipe to make. It was also easy enough to throw together, but then had to sit in the sun for three days, and be shaken several times a day. We tasted it at that point, after the three days, and at first it didn’t seem right, kind of tinny-tasting. “Uh-oh!” Dennis said and refused to act as guinea pig again. I stirred up the Pickle and sampled some from the bottom. It was closer to what it should have been, but was still “too young.” The good news was that neither of us dropped dead after that initial tasting. I had to add more oil to cover then let it sit, undisturbed for three more days. This was starting to feel more like a science experiment than cooking. What we have today looks like this:

I admit, this picture does not look all that appetizing…

But the fact that it’s ready to eat is a good excuse, nonetheless, to have a curry dinner tonight and give this Mango Pickle a proper taste test. I’m going to make a Mango Chutney today as well. That’s cooked on the stove, not by the sun, so there will be less chance of poisoning ourselves with it. And if the Pickle turns out to be not-at-all palatable then I’ll throw it out and stick to buying the bottled variety. At least the main ingredient was free and other than the time I spent moving the jar back and forth as the sunny patches diminished, it didn’t take that much effort to make.

Snowy suggested that different mangoes will give an entirely different flavour to my recipes. It’s true that these growing in our garden are not the best available on Bequia. So if the taste of the pickle is off, I’m hoping that it might just be due to this type of mango.