Smoked Trout and Mango Salad

The other weekend I was on babysitting duty for my two nieces (2 1/2 and 11 months) with my mom. We strapped them into strollers and headed out for the morning, not without incident however. While mom and I stopped for extra large coffees at the Cherry Bomb cafe on Roncesvalles Avenue (mom had been up since 5:30 with the little ones) Kyra ran to the Film Buff for Crunchy Frog icecream - mint icecream with chocolate chunks. It wasn't even 9 a.m. She got hyper and didn't want to be strapped into her stroller because she's such a 'big girl' which inevitably led to us hitting a large curb as I raced across a pedestrian walk and the stroller flipped and she scraped her knees and fell flat on her face. Then of course all she wanted was 'grandma' who was on the other side of the street and long out of sight as she bustled to try to get the baby to sleep. The magic solution was taking my traumatised neice into Scooter Girl, an excellent children's gift store, where she became instantly distracted by toys.

The four of us then moved on to High Park in search of their Saturday morning Organic Farmers Market. It's a small but elaborate set up under a tent on the hill near the restaurant. There are tons of organic fruits and vegetables and, since it's early September, lots of end of summer into early fall produce. I passed on the squashes but we did see some delectable perfectly unripe green mangoes.

Green mangoes make a delicious accompaniment to smoked fish and it is the perfect foil to the late arrival of fall. It makes a great side dish to curried shrimp and rice. This recipe comes from "Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet", the beautifully written and photographed Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid cookbook.

Smoked Fish and Green Mango

2 green mangoes
1 small smoked trout
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves (a bit of mint is encouraged)

Dressing
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 Tbsp Thai fish sauce
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp minced shallots
1 Tbsp minced galangal OR 1 tsp minced ginger with a pinch of grated lemon zest

Peel the mangoes and coarsely grate. Or finely julienne the flesh. Put in a bowl.
Remove and discard the skin and the bones from the fish. Chop into small pieces and add to the mango. Stir in the coriander and set aside.
In another small bowl, combine the ingredients for the dressing.

Comments

[Meenakshi]

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[Mats Flemstrom]

Sounds great (with my proviso of no cilantro)! I'll try this soon.
Life on Roncey still good??

[Randi]

I just returned that book to the library, I was drooling over so many of the recipes.

[Daphne]

Mats - use mint instead of cilantro. It's great w/ green mango. And I no longer live in Roncesvalles; I had a mould issue in my place. 2 moves this summer. But I'm alive and well and back eating and drinking which is all good news!