Sometimes, when you least expect it, life deals you a good hand.
Like that unexpectedly cloudy afternoon that brings the blue wings out a bit early on the Firehole, Madison or the Missouri.
Last week after posting the Friday Feast recipe for Drunken Habanero Hens I dropped into my favorite fruit and vegetable stand on the way back from an appointment.
This being Washington in early fall the array of just picked apples and pears had swelled even more from my last visit three days prior. The last of the season’s regional stone fruit was still in good shape (the white nectarines having been impossibly good this year) and the new Yakima tomatoes have been (and still are) stunning.
Just inside the door sat a bin of new, huge mangoes – the second I saw ‘em I had a vision…a vision of a spunky Drunken Mango Mint salsa we stumbled across in Austin a couple of years ago. You can even use those almost ripe but not quite there mangoes that seem to populate the bins whenever you’re looking for a really, really ripe one…
Fresh fruit salsas aren’t just for fish and breakfast any more – they’re a great late summer / early fall foil for all sorts of seafood or fowl off the grill. (We have friends that even eat this one over ice cream, though that’s obviously not for everyone…)
We like ‘em as you can soak up the last great fruit flavors of summer (frozen fruit can work here in the dead of winter) and can create a version to suit your mood and the palate of your diners, i.e. adding more floral heat with the habaneros.
Mango and mint are one of those flavors combinations that are just ‘meant to be’. The pineapple mint we planted this year for mojitos works particularly well here…
2 cups ripe mango, small to medium dice
1/2 cup red onion, minced
1 red bell pepper, cored/seeded and diced
1 green onion, trimmed, green and white parts minced
2-4 tbsp. fresh mint, cut into a chiffonade (to taste, we use more….)
1 habanero pepper, stemmed, seeded and minced OR
1-2 jalapeno peppers, stemmed, seeded and minced
Juice of two limes
Juice of 1/2 large orange
3 tbsp. tequila
Pinch of nice salt
Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl, stir twice and place in the fridge for an hour before serving.
Enjoy with just about anything.
