Green Mango Salad

Through the week I no longer buy the Guardian in the morning. Obviously I can't live without it but I have taken to reading it online Monday to Thursday and then I return to the pleasure of the physical edition for the weekend, starting with Friday and the film reviews. Food and cinema - my twin delights. I cannot imagine life without them.

If Friday's rasion d'être is the movie pages, Saturday is food. In the last two decades their food writers have included the incomparable Matthew Fort most consistently for both restaurant reviews and recipes, and amongst others Heston Blumenthal and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall as well as Vistoria Moore writing on wine and Jay Rayner these days doing reviews for the Observer and lots of features to boot. My favourite Sunday of evey month is the one where OFM

is tucked into the fold.

To my delight this week's Saturday magazine was a special edition full of summer recipes from all and sundry. My plan for the week were a touch vague so I was fast engrossed in the possibilities laid out by 50 - count them quick and feel the joy! - sleb chefs. Jamie offered gravadlax. Sam and Sam Clark from Moro caught my eye with their accompanying salad of lentils, peas and herbs for tuna - it will be made, but not this week. Bill Grainger was spare ribs but I have favourites already, Fergus Henderson delights in ox tongue bap with horseradish - but I don't like horseradish! I don't like smoked mackerel either but I was intigued nonetheless by Rick Stein's thai salad that was otherwise green mango and carrot and a mix of crunchy salty sweet and sour. I'd seen him do it on the tele and liked the look of it and now I had the recipe in front of me. Got to be a sign.

I'd already bought a serious quantity of rump steak at the Ginger Pig so decided I could probably spare 250g to make the other dish I wanted immediately - David Thompson's beef stir fried with oyster sauce. It involves cooking the onions in a dry wok to caremalise them and I could readily imagine how good that could be. We were off to Brixton in the afternoon - to go to the Ritzy to see the utterly fabulous White Material. Loved it. Spilled back out into the late afternoon sunshine there was time to shop at my second most favourite London market - the extraordinary hubbub that is Electric Avenue. Easy as pie to find firm green mangoes, shallots and chilli as well as the silken tofu that was already had on my mind.

Tuesday night we sat down to a properly exotic meal with a myriad of textures and all the salt/sweet/sour flavours in deep bowls for the hot and tiny bowls on the side.

Thai Green Mango Salad

Generous side dish serving for 2

Asian shops are undoubtedly the best place to get green mangoes but most supermarkets sell their own produce hugely under ripe so you should be able to buy one there as well

1 green mango, weighing about 450g1 large carrot (about 75g)
Small shallot, very thinly sliced
1 red bird's eye chilli, finely chopped
2 tbspns roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
2 tsp palm sugar - substitute caster if you need to
1 tbsp fish sauce
About 1 tbsp lime juice (depends on the tartness of the mango)
1 tbspn Thai sweet basil, chopped

Peel the mango and carrot, and shred, ideally using a mandolin. (There is a classic Rick Stein moment on one of his tv shows where he outlines how dangerous it is to use a mandolin incorrecty then proceeds to cut himself badly and swear virulently. It is remembered by all who saw it but, sadly, I couldn't find it on YouTube)

Toss in a large bowl with the shallots, chilli, and peanuts. Mix the sugar with the fish sauce and lime juice, add to the salad with the Thai basil, and toss again.

Pile into the centre of two side bowls and serve.

There was a little bit over that the man had as a relish with pork pie for dinner. East meets west in Stockwell.