It’s really hard to find a good ripe mango here in Holland. It must feel so exotic to be able to pick one sun ripened from a tree in your back yard (or maybe not if you are used to it). I dare not think how green the mango’s get plucked that end up here in these tempered climates (maybe this can be another sad story about how the food is injected with unmentionable substances to ripen faster, I don’t know if I want to know…). Of course you want to be responsible and eat local food. But for us that means a lot of cabbage, carrots and potatoes, also good, but not very exiting growing up surrounded by root vegetables. But before people in the South start to feel sorry for us, we do have very good Dutch strawberries and the best asparagus and the ‘tartest’ apples for apple pie. Still, I do think this salad (our own concoction) looks very spring and Easter appropriate. It looks great on the plate next to some fragrant jasmine rice (maybe also made a touch yellow by adding some curcuma/turmeric when boiling).

This is how you prepare the Mango Salad
Warm the apple vinegar cider a bit in the micro wave so you can easily dissolve the cane sugar. Then add the olive oil, salt and black pepper and the small teaspoon of curry powder and blend. Chop the red onion very fine. Halve the cucumber (you can take out the fleshy part with the seeds) and slice the two halves in little halve moon parts. Add this to the dressing. Dry roast the cumin seeds in a non stick frying pan until slightly coloured, remove from the pan and leave to cool on a plate. Prepare at least half an hour before serving to let flavours blend, but add the Mango pieces, honey and toasted cumin seeds and fresh coriander (cilantro) just before serving for fresh taste and colour. Goes great with rice and fish.

Tip: also good with chunks of pineapple instead of mango.