3 recipes that use green unripe mango, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Rujak buah, takes 15 minutes. It is most often cooked with sugar, bird's eye chillies and chilli flakes.
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When the mango trees of Oriente are heavy in Lent, families in Sucre and Anzoátegui cook the hard green fruit with sugar and spice into jalea de mango, a thick tart-sweet paste set in a dish and cut into squares. It's eaten during Holy Week, often on a piece of crisp cassava bread. The mistake to avoid is skipping the sieve, which leaves stringy fibres. Chef's tip: use a long wooden spoon and keep your arm covered: the thick paste spits as it bubbles.
Across Java, rujak buah is the afternoon snack that office workers share from a paper cone: crisp green mango, jicama, pineapple and cucumber dragged through a dark, sticky sauce of palm sugar, tamarind and crushed chilli. Hawkers usually add shrimp paste; many make a version without, which is what this is, with a few roasted peanuts for body. The mix of sour fruit and hot, sweet sauce wakes you up on a humid day. Chef's tip: chill the fruit but keep the sauce at room temperature, so it stays loose enough to cling.
Amba is the golden, sour mango sauce that Iraqi Jews brought from Baghdad (where it had come from Indian traders), and in Israel it is the signature of sabich and a favourite in falafel pitas. Traditionally green mangoes are salted and left in the sun for days to ferment; this quicker stovetop version cooks unripe mango with turmeric, fenugreek, mustard seed and vinegar, then blends it into a smooth, pourable sauce with the same tangy, curry-like flavour. Chef's tip: use mangoes that are hard and green right through; ripe ones make a sweet jam, not amba.
Venezuelan
Indonesian
Israeli