I got this idea from our neighborhood Mexican itinerant vendor of fine foods.
I guess Mexicans have a similar habit of eating sour mangoes just like we do. This one is very ingeneous and attractive.
You can use the apple mangoes or Mexican mangoes that are readily available in supermarkets in the US. Choose the greenest
that you can get.
I am not sure what type of green mangoes are available in Europe, Australia or New Zealand. Obviously,
manggang hilaw is available widely in the Philippines.
What you do first is skewer the mango with a stick or a peg (see picture above). How you do this is
you cut the bottom of the mango (where the stalk was originally) to expose a little bit of the flesh
and then skewer this until you hit the pit. You need to burrow your stick into the pit for anchorage.
You then peel the mango with a peeler (a cheese slicer works best for this) while holding the stick.
This way, you are not touching the mango flesh at all (as it could be messy).
Now here comes the best part.
You then make diagonal slices through the mango flesh until your cuts reach the pit. There is
an art to doing this. The result is that your mango looks like a flower on a stalk, expecially
if you make your slices open up. My mango in the picture above didn't open up that much, but
you get the idea.
You then squeeze lime or lemon juice (lime juice works best) on the mango. Make sure to cover
the whole mango with juice. You then roll the juiced mango in salt (or sprinkle salt all over
the mango).
You can then sprinkle cayenne or chili powder or chili sauce on the mango. I am not that a big
fan of hot foods so I omitted this step in this recipe.
Eat the mango holding it like a lollipop to your heart's content.
