Mango season is upon us. 🥭 As a kid, I innocently (and slightly foolishly) assumed that mangoes were sunshine trapped inside this beautiful yellow fruit hanging from giant trees. Somehow the sun turned magically sweet. Most folks like me from South Asia feel very strongly about mangoes. We each have a particular mango variety that we are firmly attached to, and sometimes that attachment leads to the most bizarre full-blown arguments on the internet. Nostalgia plays a key role. The mangoes we grew up eating often occupy the top position in the pyramid. For example, I grew up eating Alphonso mangoes from my grandparent’s trees at their ancestral home in Goa, so that’s the first mango I think of. The other one I love is Kesar. These are the two mangoes I actively seek to eat whenever I can. There is one thing I think all South Asians and people who’ve eaten mangoes from South Asia can agree on; these mangoes are the best. Here in America, Indian mangoes are difficult to come by, they were banned many years ago, and though the import rules were later relaxed in 2007, it’s been a challenge to find them. I’ve heard that some Indian grocery stores carry them, but that kind of luck has not yet been bestowed upon me. The COVID pandemic also played a big part in dampening the import of mangoes into America. A few years ago, Michael surprised me with a trip to London for our fifth wedding anniversary. Fortunately, our anniversary and the peak season when Indian mangoes are in May. London has a large and vibrant South Asian community, and I’d seen mangoes from India in many Instagram posts on my friends’ accounts. This trip could prove to be quite fruitful (pun intended). We did our research, and all recommendations from our friends in London pointed to an Indian grocery store called Patel Brothers. We each got a dozen mangoes to last us for our trip. One mango in the morning and another one in the evening. These mangoes were fragrant and ripe with nectar-like tasting tender flesh that fell apart in our hands as we scooped out the flesh from the mangoes’ cheeks. It made our trip extra special, and since then, we have kept reminding ourselves to go back in May (we haven’t stuck to it). Back home in America, I buy the champagne or the Ataúlfo mangoes; they’re a good substitute for the Indian ones when adequately ripened, but sometimes I’ve found them fibrous, and they leave a chalky aftertaste. Mangoes are great, but they also make the most magnificent desserts. I’ve made a version of my grandma Lucy’s mango pudding for Taste and a no-bake mango cheesecake for the New York Times. This year’s mango dessert is mango ice cream that needs only four ingredients. It’s also a straightforward base recipe for mango ice cream that you can tweak in a million different ways by adding various flavorings like spices. (I served this ice cream for a dinner party at home last week along with my blueberry Omani lime ice cream, their contrasting colors and flavors work beautifully together.) This recipe might seem a little unusual with its use of cream cheese, and it’s a method I learned from Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. Cream cheese adds a slight tanginess to complement the mango flavor, but it also helps create the soft frozen texture of ice cream. Most ice cream recipes start with preparing a custard base using egg yolks, but cream cheese obviates the need for eggs. Along with the sugar, the cream cheese reduces the formation of large ice crystals and provides the fat and protein needed to produce a soft and creamy texture in the ice cream. An ice cream maker will make your life easy, and if you are in the market for one, I recommend getting one that can freeze the mixture as it churns. One of the first ice cream makers I owned required the can be pre-frozen before the ice cream could be churned, and I almost always never had space in my freezer, nor did I think about planning a day. The newer machines are much nicer; they’re quieter, freeze during churning, and some even let you pre-freeze the mixture before churning. I don’t care for garnishes on ice cream, but if you like them, toasted salted nuts like crushed pistachios and thinly sliced almonds are great, and so is a sprinkling of lightly toasted sweetened coconut. A drizzle of tart fruit curds such as mango, lime, lemon, or passion fruit will also work nicely. No reviews 2 cups/475 ml plain unsweetened kefir or buttermilk, chilled 1 cup/200 g superfine sugar 4 oz/115 g plain full-fat cream cheese, softened to room temperature Comment * Name * Email * Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
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