There was much clutter and mess on the table after we finished last weekend’s prawn and mango feast. The shellfish came sizzling and popping from the pan. We sucked the spicy seasoning from the shells, then tore at them with our fingers, pulling the crisp scales from the sweet white flesh beneath. The hot, spicy juice stung our lips. We scooped up the accompanying mango salsa, itself spicy with scarlet chillies and fish sauce, with our forks, then mopped our plates with a soft, slightly scorched flat bread.
I like messy eating. More accurately, I adore it. The tantalisingly salty tang of hot seafood on my fingers and the juices that escape, more than compensate for the splodges and drips that appear on clothes, lips and table. As plates of prawns were passed around, we licked the juices from our fingers and wiped our plates with the blackened and blistered sheets of bread. Eating rarely gets better than this.
I have been chasing the season’s glorious honey mangoes all week and buying them by the boxful. The mangoes around right now are this fruit at its most sumptuous, richly ripe and so juicy as to require a napkin if not a bib. This is not a fruit to even attempt to eat politely. You simply need to peel it and go for it. While they are in season, from now until early July, they are something on which to gorge.
I like messy eating. More accurately, I adore it
The Alphonso mango is a fruit of calm beauty, its smooth apricot-yellow skin and graceful curves are pleasing in the hand, and their season is to be celebrated. They often come with an attachment of tinsel put there by the packers to highlight the fruits’ arrival. I have been known to eat two a day.
There have been additions to the herb table that sits outside the kitchen doors. Bronze and green fennel, both as bushy as a horse’s mane, have gone in this week, and the various thymes are now repotted into gritty soil. Marigold and nasturtium seeds have been sown and I am the proud owner of a sansho pepper plant courtesy of Mark Diacono’s Otter Farm. The plant is self-fertile, but we shall see if any of the mouth-tingling peppercorn fruits appear. I have high hopes of using its slightly addictive, smoky, citrus pepper notes in my cooking later this year.
Still on a fruit note, there are some fine melons around right now. Their brilliant orange, jelly-soft flesh has appeared on the table twice this week. First as dessert with a lemon sorbet and then with torn mozzarella and wafer fine slices of fat-marbled coppa, cooked until crisp and scattered over the ripe fruit and milky cheese. I cooked a few extra to pass round with the chilled rosé I have been drinking on these blissful, sunny weekends.
• The best mango fool I made this year involved substituting half-whipped cream for thick, strained yoghurt and a squeeze of lemon juice.
• If your mangoes don’t smell intensely fruity, then they are unlikely to be ripe.
• Alphonso mangoes work in chicken or seafood salads, either ripe or green. The latter being pleasingly tart and crunchy.
Serves 2–3. Ready in 1 hour.
Shell-on, raw (grey) prawns are the ones to use here. If you can’t find them, then many fishmongers stock them frozen. The only way to eat them is to dive in with your fingers, then go for the mango salsa with a fork. I reckon on about 6 large prawns per person.
For the salad:
rice vinegar 2 tbsp
lime juice 2 tbsp
olive oil 2 tbsp
soy sauce 1 tbsp
fish sauce 1 tbsp
ginger 35g
bird’s eye chilli 1-2
light muscovado sugar 1 tbsp
mint leaves 10
coriander leaves 10
mango 1 per person
chive or garlic flowers optional
For the prawns:
butter 100g, soft
ginger 1 tbsp, finely grated
garlic 2 cloves
lime 1
dark soy sauce 1 tbsp
sesame oil 2 tsp
prawns 500g large, raw
The salad needs to be chilled, so make this first. Pour the rice vinegar into a small bowl, then stir in the lime juice, olive oil and the soy and fish sauces.
Peel the ginger and grate to a paste using a fine-bladed grater, then stir into the dressing, Remove the stems and seeds, then finely chop the chilli or chillies and stir in with the sugar. Roll up the mint leaves and shred finely with a sharp knife. Finely chop the coriander and stir in with the mint.
Peel the mango and slice the flesh from the large, flat stone. Cut the flesh into roughly 2cm cubes and add to the dressing and chill thoroughly.
Cook the prawns: put the butter into a medium-sized saucepan. Peel and grate the ginger to a soft paste and add to the butter. Peel the garlic, put the cloves into a mortar with a pinch of salt and mash to a paste with a pestle. (If you don’t have a pestle and mortar, smash the cloves and salt on a chopping board using the end of a rolling pin.)
Halve the lime and squeeze the juice into the butter. Pour in the soy sauce and the sesame oil then warm over a moderate heat until the butter melts.
Rinse the prawns and pat dry with kitchen towel. Put half of the butter in a shallow pan over a moderate heat. When it starts to fizz, add the prawns and let them cook for 5–6 minutes until their shells have changed colour – they will turn opaque. Turn the prawns over with kitchen tongs and cook the other side for a minute or two until nicely crisp and bronzed. Transfer to a shallow serving bowl, sprinkling, if you wish, with chive or garlic flowers and eat with the chilled mango salad, while the prawns are still hot.
Photographs by Jonathan Lovekin
