Mango Sorbet for Sundae Sunday

Cool, refreshing and slightly exotic, this mango sorbet is the perfect healthy treat on a hot summer afternoon.

Sundae Sunday is the brainchild of my buddy Di of Di's Kitchen Notebook. She challenged a group of us to make an ice cream and post together today. She's doing a round up and will post it later this week.

With the weather sizzling around the U.S., I wanted to make something light and refreshing. I first had this sorbet when I spent the night at a coworker's house in the Napa Valley. A friend and I drove up to have dinner at the French Laundry, and Karen served us this treat when we got in. Although I thought I didn't like mangos, I loved it. M. adores mangos, and I've made it for him dozens of times since. I've tweaked it over the years, so that it is all about the mango. I hope you like it.

Notes:

• Don't make this unless you can find really good mangos. How can you tell? I am the woman sniffing each and every mango I buy. If I can't smell its perfume, I don't buy it. One way to tell: find the ripest mango in the bin and smell it. If it's fragrant, the unripe ones will be, too.
• Large markets will sometimes have mangos from a couple different distributors in the same bin. If you find a fragrant ripe one, make sure the others you select have the same sticker.
• Leave mangos to ripen at room temperature in a paper bag.
• You want your mangos to be a tiny bit riper for this recipe than perhaps you'd want them to be for eating. And by a tiny bit, I mean a day, maybe two. Overripe mangos have an offensive flavor (to me anyway) that tastes like eating perfume. Blech!
• Some mangos have a lot of flesh and small puts, some have giant pits and little flesh. I buy an extra mango or two in case I end up with the giant pit variety.
• You can freeze simple syrup. Try putting it in an ice cube tray, then transferring to a zip top bag when frozen.
• Add only enough simple syrup to the mixture as you need to highlight the mango. We're not making candy here.
• The lime is only to make the flavor of the mango more prominent: you don't want your sorbet to be at all tart.
• Start with a small quantity of the simple syrup and lime, adding small amounts to fine tune the flavor until it's perfect for you.

Mango Sorbet - adapted from Gourmet Magazine
Printer-friendly recipe
Makes about 1 quart

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
6 ripe mangos (see Notes)
1 lime

Make the simple syrup:
Boil the sugar and water in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved. Let cool completely before using (I make this the day before and store in the fridge).

Make the sorbet:
Extract as much fiber-free flesh from the mango as possible, and put it in the jar of your blender. Add a couple tablespoons of simple syrup and the juice of half a lime. Blend until the mixture is smooth, then taste it. The mango should be predominant - not sweet, not tart, but somehow better than the fruit was by itself. When you reach that point and the mixture is perfectly smooth, transfer it to the canister of an ice cream maker and churn until the consistency of soft-serve ice cream. Transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze. Use within one week.

CEiMB - Mango Lassi

Craving Ellie in My Belly has been rejuvenated by Marthe at Culinary Delights, and I was thrilled when, in spite of my spotty participation of late, Marthe invited me to host this week.

Hosting is a big deal. First of all, I try to pick a recipe that will be easy, use seasonal or inexpensive ingredients, be flexible (so you can leave out things you don't like) and be something kids and adults alike will love. I've had good success with my past picks for this group (Nutty Granola, here, and Sweet and Spicy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, here), and I didn't want to pick a dud and ruin my record.

It's hard to pick a dud with Ellie Krieger's recipes. For the most part, they are fast, flavorful and always better for you than most similar recipes. I picked the Mango Lassi because M. loves mangoes and we love lassis. I may not have ever posted this before but we love spicy food, me even more than the hubs, and dairy (the base of a lassi) is the best way to turn down the heat from capsicum, the active ingredient in hot peppers. My heat tolerance level is burn-my-face-off, and M. loves to tell the story about the time we were in Tokyo eating at an Indian restaurant and the Indian owner admitted he couldn't even eat the curries as spicy as I do. I really enjoy a good lassi not only for its ability to take the edge off of the burn but because of its full body and tangy sweetness.

So it was incredible that I've never made one of these at home until this recipe, indeed, this morning. See, things are crazy busy at work, I'm working 12 hour days and I'm kind of tired. Yesterday, I carried my cereal bowl around with me, trying to eat breakfast and didn't manage to eat lunch until almost 4 so a meal I can drink out of a glass sounds ideal!

The trickiest part of the recipe is getting the mango out of the mango, but Ellie has a great method for freeing the slippery mango from its skin. Once you have cubed mango, you're almost done! Put it in the blender with yogurt, honey, and ice. I added a scoop of protein powder and called it breakfast--a small glass to drink while writing this post and a big take-along cup. This was a yummy, creamy, delicious breakfast I had time to enjoy on the drive to work. Give this one a try, it's super easy and tasty. Next time, I think I'll branch out and try peaches or apricots for a twist.

You can find the rest of the CEiMB cooks here...check out how they did with this one. I can't wait to see what flavors they introduced to their lassis!

Mango Lassi

Ellie says: This is my take on the classic Indian drink which is traditionally made with lots of sugar. I use a bit of honey to bring out the natural sweetness of the mango and the result is nirvana--a silky-smooth delight that is sunny shade of yellow.

2 ripe mangoes
1 1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt
2 tablespoons honey
2 cups ice (1 tray of cubes)

To peel and cut the mango, cut 1/4" of the top and bottom of the fruit and sit it on its larger end on a cutting board. At the top end, find the pit with your knife and cut down alongside it (a mango's pit is flat). Do the same with the other side. Cut each half lengthwise into 4 slices. Cut the peel from each slice and slice the mango crosswise into chunks.

Place the mango chunks in the blender and process until smooth. Add the yogurt, honey and ice and process until the ice is crushed and the drink is frothy. Serve in tall glasses with additional ice if desired. Serves 4.