Cutting up a mango

Welcome to this week's Frugal Follies Frugal Tip!

This week, I'm cutting up lots and lots and lots of mangoes from my tree to get them ready for freezing and for recipes.  And mangoes are on sale at the grocery stores now.  So I thought I'd share a post from last year about how to cut a mango!

A mango has a very large, flat pit inside it.  Here's the best way to get the mango flesh out of the mango without running into the pit, or without wasting much mango flesh.  After that, I'll give you my faster, but slightly more wasteful, way to cut a mango.

You'll need a knife, a spoon, a cutting board, and a mango.

 

1.  Hold the mango on its narrow side. (That's my youngest daughter doing the holding.) Mangoes aren't perfectly round; two sides are flat and long, and the other two sides are narrow. The seed faces the flat side. You'll need to hold it, or it will roll over onto the longer, flatter side.

2.  Make a cut through the middle of the narrow side. Cut until you hit the pit. Then continue that cut in a circle around the mango.

3.  Put the spoon in the cut that you've made, and wiggle it around until the two sides have separated a bit. Then use the spoon to separate one side of the mango from the pit.

4.  With the spoon, remove the pit from the other side of the mango.

5.  Cut a checkerboard pattern into the mango flesh without cutting through the skin. (You might cut through the edges of the skin; this is okay. Just don't cut all the way through.)

6.  Flatten the mango half out. Cutting from the side, cut between the mango flesh and the skin so that the cubes are removed.  Now you have mango cubes to use in any recipe.

Now for my quicker way:
1.  Hold the mango on the narrow end, as in step 1.
2.  Slice off the right side of the mango at the point where the flesh meets the pit.  If you hit the pit, move a little more to the right and try again.
3.  Slice off the left side of the mango at the point where the flesh meets the pit.  Again, move to the left if you hit the pit.
4.  Turn the mango over onto a cut side and do the left and right sides again.  You'll end up with two circular pieces and two rectangular-shaped pieces.
5. Cut the checkerboard into the four mango pieces as in step 5 above.
6.  Remove the mango cubes from the skin as in step 6 above.


For more frugal tips, please go to my Linkup Parties page and check out the bloggers listed under Frugal Tips Linkups.  There are lots of great ideas on each blog and I'm sure you'll find lots of wonderful tips!

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