11 replies to this topic

[Baselerd]

I was looking through some cookbooks and wanted to try a recipe that featured green mango. I have tried to Google this with surprisingly little luck - is this a wholly different species of mango than the typical ones you find at the supermarket, or just one that is not ripened? Thanks!

[djyee100]

I googled "green mango recipes" & got many results. Is there something in particular you are looking for?

The green mangoes that I have cooked with are extremely unripe regular mangoes, prepared with chiles and salt in a Thai salad. Kasma Loha-unchit's recipe & blog about green mangoes: http://thaifoodandtr...og/green-mango/

Edited by djyee100, 11 February 2013 - 07:24 PM.

[tsp.]

Yeah, they're just an unripe mango. Actually, in it's dried form, amchoor (sp?) it's used as a tenderizer.

[DocDougherty]

Amchur is used as an essential seasoning in chole (curried chickpeas) and can be substituted for dried tamarind in a pinch.

[bague25]

Green mangoes are unripe ones and the best are those where the shell of the kernel is still soft and it can be cut through. As for amchur, it is just another souring agent with a different flavour profile. Besides it's convenient is chaat or salad dishes because it can be powder form and so easily sprinkled.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

This said, not all green mangoes are created equal.... In North America you'll mostly only find Tommy Atkins in unripe form, and for my 2 cents that's the worst possible mango to eat green - it's too fibrous for my tastes. If you can find green Julie, Kent, Keitt, or if you're very lucky, green Champagne mangoes, they are all superior to the Tommy.

[Baselerd]

Thanks for all the help - this was for a green mango salad (with simple syrup, lemon juice, and lemon zest) for a component of a dessert dish. I ended up just buying some unripe Atkins mangos - definitely a bit fibrous as Panaderia had mentioned. Cutting the mango down into small matchsticks helped reduce that a bit.

[Raamo]

If you have any Indian Grocery stores around you'll find they're a great source of green mangos. One near me has a few ripe mangos only in stock, but many green mangos. I made a pickle with green mangos and it turned out quite tasty if you're into that sort of thing.

[TheCulinaryLibrary]

Tam som also known as Som tam is the world famous green salad of Laos, Thailand and Cambodia and usually made with green papaya (also known as pawpaw) pounded with lime, chili, fish sauce and palm sugar to give it its sour, spicy, salty, sweet balance. There are regional and national variations on the recipe, some with added peanuts, lime leaves, tomato, basil, snake bean, prawns or dried shrimp. Green mango is better known in Indian and Phillippino cooking but is one such variation occasionally added to Tam som but used as an additive rather than a replacement to the green papaya and unlike our western mango varieties the one they use is not fibrous around the seed. So Raamo and Panaderia are both right and I’d ask the Indian grocer for my green mango. Green Papaya and green mango have the same texture but the mango is slightly sweeter and not so savory so you might find it easier to buy green papaya at the Asian markets and just sweeten it a little more for the same taste you are after.

Edited by TheCulinaryLibrary, 12 February 2013 - 06:37 PM.

[tsp.]

I think they often use jaggery in India instead of palm sugar too, they're both unrefined sugar, but I think jaggery comes from sugarcane instead of the date palm.

[bague25]

At a Thai food festival last summer, I had this salad but made only with semi-ripe mangoes with peanuts, fish sauce, chilli, palm sugar, dried shrimp and lime - maybe that was because mangoes are more easily sourceable than raw papaya here.

Tsp. I think jaggery (or gur) in India just means unrefined sugar - then you have palm jaggery, date jaggery and cane jaggery.

[TheCulinaryLibrary]

It never occurred to me that green mango would be easier for you to source than green papaya! It's the opposite here in Oz.