Mango Mexican way

Mango seasoned with salt, chili and lime is typical street food in Mexico. Whole mango is peeled and often cut to look like a flower, seasoned and sold on a stick.
Incredibly delicious, but as it is a bit tricky to eat whole mango on a stick I decided to cut it in cubes for this homemade version.

Cut each side around the mango bone so that you have two nice mango halves. Now cut cubes in each side, try not to cut through the skin. Flip the mango inside out, and you will have cubes out.

Peel of the cubes and put them in a bowl. Cut the mango flesh around the bone and add it to the mango cubes. Squeeze some lime juice over, sprinkle with some salt and chili powder.

Cherries

I love cherries. They are one of my favourite fruits. As a kid I have spent many summers sitting up in the cherry tree, picking and eating. The coolest thing was to eat the cherry-pit as well...not so cool anymore.
Cherries can be sweet (left) or sour (right) in taste, and there are many variates of each sort.

Sweet cherries are meaty in texture, they are less juicy than the sour cherries and it is easy to remove the pit. It was these cherries I was eating up in the tree and even today I only eat them fresh, no baking here.

Sour cherries on the other hand are very juicy, dark red and it is bit harder to remove the pit. They are really sour and flavourful so these are the cherries for cooking and baking.

And when it come to the baking, cherries and almonds are the perfect match. So I decided to make my favourite almond cake, Spanish cake called Tarta de Santiago. It is made of equal parts of eggs, sugar, almond flour and flavouring, very simple and very delicious.
I also wanted to use strudel dough (my latest obsession) and so was this sour cherry cake born.

Sour cherry cake
serves 6
3 eggs
200 gr sugar ( I used mixture of muscovado and cane sugar)

200 gr ground almonds (I used toasted almonds)
200 gr sour cherries
1,5 tbsp amaretto liqueur

2 dl bread flour
pinch of salt
1,5 tbsp oil
about 5 tbsp warm water

2 tbsp melted butter
2 tbsp sugar (from those 200 gr above)
2 tbsp ground almonds (from those 200 gr above)

baking dish 25x15 cm (1,3l)

Make the strudel dough , divide in 5 equal parts and let it rest for one hour. In the mean time pit the cherries. When the strudel dough has rested stretch each part individually. Brush the baking dish with melted butter and cover the bottom with one strudel sheet. Brush the sheet with melted butter and sprinkle some of the sugar and ground almonds over it.

Repeat until you have used all the strudel sheets. Do not sprinkle any sugar and almonds on the last sheet.

Preheat the oven, 180C. Beat eggs and sugar until fluffy and light in colour. Add amaretto and ground almonds. Blend carefully until everything is incorporated. Pour over the strudel layers, spread cherries over the almond filling and bake for about 30 minutes. Cute when cold. It tastes even better the next day.

Mexican chocolate pudding

When I saw the recipe for Mexican chocolate pudding in Gourmet I had to make it. I love everything about Mexican chocolate, it is too perfect. And this pudding recipe is using almond milk so I was very curious about how it will influence the flavour. And what can I say, excellent influence.

I have changed the recipe just a bit, I used muscovado sugar and less of it, I added more cornstarch and left out the butter completely. I also cooked the pudding the way I always do.

One important thing when it comes to the cinnamon. There are two different cinnamon types, Ceylon and Cassia. I learned this when I went to Mexico for the first time. In Mexico Ceylon cinnamon (right) is used, but in Sweden Cassia (left) is used.

The taste is really different so when you make Swedish cinnamon buns you have to use Cassia and when you make Mexican chocolate you have to use Ceylon. Otherwise they don´t taste as they should.

Mexican chocolate pudding
adapted from Gourmet serves 2
4+1 dl almond milk
3,5 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp muscovado sugar
4 tbsp cocoa powder (I used one with 10-12% cocoa butter)
1/2 tsp Ceylon cinnamon powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 vanilla bean

Put 4 dl almond milk in a saucepan. Scrape the vanilla bean and add to the milk together with the pod. Put the milk to boil.
In a small bowl mix all dry ingredients, slowly add 1 dl cold almond milk, whisk until everything is smooth. When the almond milk is boiling, take out vanilla pod and remove from heat. Add the cornstarch mixture, whisking all the time. Put back on the heat and and let it boil on low heat until it thickens, couple of minutes. Do not whisk that much as the cornstarch might go thin. Divide between two bowls and let chill.

Rapeseed, 2nd part

Rapeseed is continuing to grow. A month later and beautiful yellow flowers are gone but pods are much bigger. The seeds are already visible but completely green. I guess it will take some more weeks and a lot more sun to get these ready for oil pressing.

I was checking the world statistic of rapeseed production and Germany is actually at the 4th place. Speaking of statistics ¨The Food and Agriculture Organization¨ of the United Nations keeps statistics of worlds commodity production. You can search by commodity, country, continent...it is quite addictive!

This is top 10 worlds commodity production in 2007:

1. cow milk
2. rice
3. cattle meat
4. pig meat
5. chicken meat
6. wheat
7. hen eggs
8. soybeans
9. buffalo milk
10. vegetables