Mangoes are among my favorite fruits, but they aren’t always available in the market and sometimes I forget how much I like them, so I can go a year or two between binges. When I do discover them on sale in the market, I can’t wait to take them home, peel them and eat them. This used to be a production… until I discovered the mango slicer. Mangoes have large, flat almond-shaped pits that are awkward to slice around, but the mango slicer makes it a breeze. It’s a cheap kitchen timesaver that will last me a lifetime.
First, you have to peel your mango. I use a peeler with a sharp blade because the dull ones just slide off the thick, smooth skin. (Very ripe mangoes are harder to peel than slightly firmer mangoes.) Then position the mango vertically in the slicer. Correct positioning makes all the difference between an easy and a frustrated slicing experience. Mangoes have a top and a bottom, though the difference can seem subtle. The bottom is a bit wider and fatter. My slicer has a tiny spike in the bottom that helps me settle the bottom of the mango in there securely.
Then I pick up the blade of the slicer and carefully position it so that the blade will make a vertical cut right where I suspect the pit is. If you don’t get this right, the slicer will “hang” in the middle of the cut because it will get caught on the pit. It might take slicing a few mangoes before you get the hang of it. At this point I rarely run into trouble.
Peeling and cutting up the mango used to take me close to 10 minutes, but now it takes me 3 minutes with the slicer, and it’s much neater. Enjoy!
