Green Mangoes

[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 February 13, 2013 by TheCulinaryLibrary (log)

[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.

[SLB]

Anybody have any idea where I can find unripe mangoes???

[scamhi]

on my tree in Southwest Florida. Where are you located?

[SLB]

NYC.  I'll pay shipping!