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You could bribe Satan with this popsicle. |
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Mangoneada: The Artistic Annihilation of Thirst
By Ari LeVauxPublished: August 15, 2010
Brought to you this month by Flash in the Pan’s Ari LeVaux.
Mangoneada: The Artistic Annihilation of Thirst
I ordered my first mangoneada because I thought it sounded vaguely like mango-lemonade, which seemed perfect on a hot day. Better Spanish speakers may have realized mangoneada refers to unscrupulous use of power, like graft or bribery. With my first slurp I began to see why – Mangoneadas are powerful and desirable. On a hot day I bet you could bribe Satan with one.
A mangoneada is a mango popsicle and a dipping sauce of red chili powder, salt, lime juice, and sugar. The dip is in a cup and is reapplied between slurps. Altogether, the mangoneada is at once too sweet, too spicy, too bitter, too sour, and too salty. But these intense and different flavors somehow manage to play brilliantly together. It’s like rock, paper, scissors in your mouth.
Making Mangoneada
One average-size mango blended with a cup of water will make an ice cube tray’s worth of mango popsicle. Remove the flesh from a mango, cut it into cubes, add the fruit to a blender along with a cup or two of water. The second cup makes the popsicles more hydrating, and stretches your mango supply. For each cup of water, add a tablespoon each of sugar and lime. Blend and pour the puree into your popsicle cups. Insert popsicle sticks after one to two hours in the freezer, and allow to freeze completely.
At serving time, remove the popsicles from the cups. Combine a teaspoon each of sugar and chili powder (mild to hot, depending on the person), and a big pinch of salt for each. Stir in a tablespoon of fresh lime juice. This sauce can be made ahead of time in large quantities or mixed individually in each popsicle cup.
Add a tablespoon or two of sauce to each cup and, optionally, a teaspoon or two of real chamoy, if you can get it. Replace the popsicle in its cup. It is now a mangoneada.
If you can't find real chamoy and want that acidic, fruity sourness in your mangoneada, here are some alternatives. A fine store-bought solution is the sour orange marinade you can find in Caribbean food markets. Even better, make tamarind syrup like they do in some parts of Mexico. Soak 1/4 cup of dry or brick tamarind in 3/4 cups of warm water for about an hour. (Heat the water to speed the process.) Stir and mash it around, and then filter out the seeds and skin. Over a low flame, reduce the tamarind water by about 80 percent, and then let it cool. Use it as you would chamoy — adding a teaspoon or so to the chili sauce.
Among all such variations on this brilliant flavor equation, the mangoneada remains in a league by itself. The use of dipping to control the flavor mix, the changing conditions as the popsicle melts, and the visual spectacle of the bright colors contrasting and blending all conspire to make it a unique experience.
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