Thai Mango Salad

With all of the Italian food I've eaten in the past month I have had a real craving for a Thai feast! I made up for that last night with a meal of chicken satay, lemongrass crusted chicken, peanut noodles, and of course my favourite mango salad.

The traditional Thai salad is sweet and spicy, filled with finely meat, peanuts and chilies. The recipe is quite forgiving and I always add something of my own in - in this case I added some grated carrot. The dressing is typically Thai - salty, sweet, hot, and sour all in one bite. MMMM

Be sure to use unripe mangoes with this salad - making it a perfect use for those rocks that the grocery store passes off as fruit for much of the year!

Thai Mango Salad

1/3 cup (75 mL) chopped cashew or peanuts
2 unripe mangoes, 2 lb/1 kg total
1/3 cup (75 mL) chopped fresh cilantro
1/3 cup (75 mL) chopped mint
2 tbsp (25 mL) lime juice
4 tsp (18 mL) granulated sugar
4 tsp (18 mL) fish sauce
1 tbsp (15 mL) vegetable oil
1/4 tsp (1 mL)Asian chili sauce or hot pepper sauce
1 sweet red pepper, thinly sliced
1 cup (250 mL) thinly sliced red onion

In skillet or toaster oven, toast cashews over medium heat until fragrant and golden, about 8 minutes; set aside.

Cut pointy ends off mangoes. Set each mango on cut end. Using serrated knife, cut off peel. Cut flesh on either side of flat pit into thin slices; stack and cut into thin strips.

In bowl, whisk together coriander, mint, lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, oil and chili sauce. Add mangoes, red pepper and onion; toss to coat.

(Make-ahead: Cover and refrigerate for up to 2 days.)

Sprinkle with cashews/peanuts.

Comments

[Kayte]

Sounds delightful and looks so very pretty. Thai...yes, we need Thai very soon. I joined this blog along group called My Kitchen My World. Each month they pick a country and make anything they want from that cuisine and post it. No commitments, post when you want, don't if you don't. Last month was my first month: Mexico and I thought that was okay, this month is India and I have never made anything Indian before, so I grabbed Madhur Jaffey's book from the library (The Queen of Indian Cuisine) and have been exploring. Fun for me...my extent of branching out is usually stealing recipes from your site!

[Sharon]

This sounds (and looks) absolutely delish! Now that we've moved on from frigid weather here in N. Ca, I'm going to have to make this real soon. Thanks for posting your recipe.

[JDeQ]

That sounds like a fun way to expand your foodie horizons Kayte - I can't wait to hear about 'Indian' month!

Enjoy Sharon!