The good-old mango evokes some great memories for me. Just the smell of them takes me back to the 80′s when I was a teenager climbing the mango tree in my parents front yard in southeast Queensland; or the massive trees in the neighbours yard where you needed a 4-metre pole with a used empty tin can nailed to one end just to reach up and grab the sweet fruit before those annoying fruit bats did at night. I remember often just climbing the tree after school or on the weekend in the height of steamy Queensland summers, slumped on a branch to catch the cool breeze and pick a ripe mango. I’d peel it there and then with my teeth, and devour the sweet flesh as fast as I could before the blowflies ravaged me, with mango juice running down my arms and dripping off my elbows.
My love for mangoes is just as strong today. No, I don’t have a tree at my disposal here in inner-city Sydney, but the fruit is never too far away to purchase.
A recent trip to India reignited my fascination with its cuisine, including its sweets, and got me thinking to create a delicious treat using mango and a dessert called shrikhand. Traditionally this yoghurt dessert is served on its own, and sometimes, is mixed with fresh fruit. What I’ve done here is along these lines. The “blossom” basically comes from the way the mango flesh is scored and inverted to impersonate a flower.
grilled mango blossom with shrikhand
ingredients
- 500g Greek yoghurt
- 1/2 cup caster sugar
- 1 tsp rose water
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- a few threads of saffron
- 1 tbsp milk
- 4 tsp pistachio’s, chopped
- 1 or 2 cheeks fresh mango
method
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Strain the yoghurt in muslin or in a fine sieve overnight.
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Put the strained yoghurt into a bowl and add the sugar. Mix well.
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Rub saffron into the milk until dissolved.
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Mix cardamom into the yoghurt, add the rose water and saffron milk and 2 tablespoons of the chopped pistachio’s.
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Score the mango cheeks in a criss-cross pattern and char-grill for a minute.
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Inverse the mango cheek and lay on a serving plate and dollop some shrikhand next to it.
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I used a blow torch to caramelise the edges of the mango here, just for visuals and some extra flavour.
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As a garnish, I made some toffee shards by blow-torching sugar, letting it melt and darken and cool before using.
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Give the shrikhand a final sprinkling with the chopped pistachio and serve with a cheek of fresh lime to squeeze over the mango.
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Enjoy. I know you will.
