Mangosteen

Appears in

By Alastair Little and Richard Whittington

Published 1998

About

Mangosteens are enjoying a fashionable popularity, though their availability here is scarcely new. The first mangosteens were brought back from Southeast Asia as long ago as the sixteenth century, the name coming from the Malay. The fruit is round, with a reddish brown skin. Inside is a pink pith containing six segments of white-fleshed fruit, which is what you eat. The flavour is unique, so the only way you are going to find out what it tastes like is to eat one.

Removing the flesh from a mango

A mango has a thin, centrally positioned oval stone which means the stone is sideways on as the mango sits on a flat surface. The stone is also a real clinger, so ingenious means have had to he found to remove the flesh from it.

❶ Turn the unpeeled fruit on its side, so the stone is in a vertical plane. With a flexible-bladed knife, cut downwards just to one side of an imaginary median line, following the contour of the stone. Repeat on the other side to detach the other half. The stone will be left surrounded with very little flesh within a thin strip of skin, which is easily trimmed off. Discard the stone.

❷ and ❸ Cut a cross-hatch through the flesh of each cut surface down to the skin.

❹ Turn the skin inside out to open out the cuts made into the flesh, which will then detach as cubes.