You need to feel a mango to know when it is ripe and at its prime for eating – as colour isn’t always a guide. When held it should yield slightly when gently pressed. If the mango isn’t quite ready for eating when you buy it, leave it at room temperature to ripen in the fruit bowl.

Indian and Thai recipes often call for ‘green’ mangoes. This does not necessarily refer to the skin colour of the fruit, more to the variety required for cooking. Look for these in Indian or Thai specialist shops.

Mango powder (known as amchoor – ‘am’ means mango, ‘choor’ powder) is an Indian spice ground from sun-dried slices of raw green mangoes, so has a sweet-sour taste and is used to add a tangy flavour to chutneys, lentil and vegetable dishes as well as snacks such as samosas and pakoras – and is often sprinkled on as a flavoursome garnish.

Top tip
To prepare a mango, cut down either side of the central stone to give two mango ‘cheeks’. Cut off the peel and cut the flesh into slices, or for cubes, prepare hedgehog style. Do this by scoring evenly spaced lines into the flesh criss-cross fashion, without going through to the skin. Bend the mango skin back so the cubes stick up like a hedgehog, which makes them easy to slice off into cubes, or to eat with a spoon.

Did you know…
Mango is a good source of vitamin C, so combine with banana, milk and yogurt for a healthy drink.