Champagne mangos are smaller than ordinary mangos. If you can't find them, choose the best fruit you can find and make sure it's ripe before slicing. A ripe mango will give when pressed and smell fragrant.
Servings: Makes 4 servings
Ingredients
  • 2 cups fresh raspberries
  • 2 to 4 teaspoons Raw Sugar Simple Syrup
  • 2 Champagne mangos or 1 large regular mango , cut from the pit, peeled and sliced
  • 4 4-by-3 inch Cardamom Shortbread cookies
  • 4 tablespoons raw cane sugar
    • Directions
    Put the raspberries in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Slowly add the simple syrup to taste, depending on the sweetness of the raspberries. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl.

    Slice the mango halves into fans.

    Lay the cookies on a broiler pan. Set the fans of top of each cookie and sprinkle each with one tablespoon raw sugar. With a small blowtorch, caramelize the sugar. If you don't have a blowtorch, slice the broiler pan under a preheated broiler about 3 inches from the heat source to caramelize. Either way, watch the sugar closely; it will caramelize in about one minute.

    Place each cookie on a dessert plate. Drizzle the raspberry coulis around the cookie on the plate.

    Recommended technique: Mangos are messy to work with, and it may take some practice before you can successfully halve or quarter them. Each mango has two flattened "faces," front and back. Cut off the fruit of one face straight down next to the large flat seed. Cut off the other face of the fruit, peel away the skin and cut off the fruit on the bottom, top and sides. Fan or dice the mango.

    From the book Taste Pure and Simple

    For more from Michel Nischan, visit his website: www.michelnischan.com
    Published 01/01/2006

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