The first mango of the season

Tonight we had the first mangoes of the season. Not even spring (quite), and we have had mangoes! Ok, not exactly Kensington Prides, these were little cooking mangoes that I spotted in the supermarket for a ludicrously small price.

Easy to peel and slice up, they look very pretty in the bowl.

I'd already decided on rice paper rolls for dinner, so I figured I'd see how these went into the mix. I use a random selection of ingredients for these, but tonight's were:

• rump steak (cooked and then sliced and marinated in soy sauce and sesame oil)
• carrot
• cucumber
• shallots
• red capsicum
• mango
• celery
• mint leaves
• Vietnamese mint leaves
• rice vermicelli
• sliced ham (for small kids who won't eat the steak)
• hoisin sauce
• sweet chilli sauce
• hot chilli sauce

We constructed them at the table, to general approval. I even got kisses and multiple thank yous after dinner.

And the mangoes? They're a keeper. They're tart and aromatic and very, very tasty. Perfect for salads. The kids are very keen to have more, and at the price they are now ($1/kg) they can have as many as they want. They even have a tiny stone in them, for maximum bang for your buck. They won't be booting big, fat, yellow, sweet mangoes off their Favourite Fruit pedestal, but they'll be making more appearances in our kitchen.