Being able to freely enjoy my favorite tropical fruits is one of the advantages of living in Malaysia. Especially for people like me who grew up in Korea in Northeast Asia, buying imported fresh tropical fruits whenever I crave them is quite expensive.
So, here in Malaysia, I can’t help but be more than happy to be able to eat a lot of seasonal fruits for snacks or desserts at a reasonable price every month.
In particular, among tropical fruits, I really like mango, papaya, pineapple, guava, jackfruit, and mangosteen.
So, in the month when seasonal fruits are plentiful and harvested, I always take the time to go to supermarkets, street trucks, and traditional wet markets to buy as many fruits as possible.
The meaning of buying as many as possible is very different from common sense, so it is interpreted to mean buying about 20 to 30 fruits at a time, not just one or two.
The weight of dozens of fruits may not come to your mind, so I add an explanation. There were times when I’ve bought around 30 huge mangoes at a hypermarket, called Hero Market in the TTDI neighborhood of Petaling Jaya.
One mango that fits in the palm of my hand weighs about 450 to 500 grams. That is, if calculated arithmetically, the total weight of more than 30 mangoes is almost 15 kilograms.
And I have already made a firm decision in my mind to take a taxi with plenty of other groceries.
So it is very advantageous for me to buy as many mangoes as possible.
Of course, I bought other fruits such as papaya, guava, chiku, banana, pineapple, various fresh vegetables, a variety of packed meats and seafood, dairy products, nuts, seeds, etc. in one taxi ride home.
Take a look at the plastic bags I bought with piles of mangoes above! You can see that my level of addiction to mango, especially, is exceptional.
Other people may be worried that they will not be able to consume so many fruits in a short period of time, and throw them away as garbage, but I am more than happy to consume all these fruits by myself, if only space in the refrigerator allowed, I think I would have bought much more. haha! ????
Let’s talk about the price for the mangoes when they are in season in Malaysia. Six plastic bags are price-tagged, and one bag contains about five or more mangoes. The price of seasonal mangoes is quite cheap, about RM 4 per kilo in Malaysia, less than USD $1. That is, one bag weighs about 3 kilos, so it is RM 12. A total of 6 bags cost RM72, which is about USD $16.
In fact, mango prices aren’t always cheap just because it’s in season here. The reason for the low price is that several types of cheap mangos, including the mango susu(milk mango) I bought or mango lemak(fat mango), or mango waterlily, are transported by truck from Thailand and imported into Malaysia. Otherwise, no matter how in season here, mango prices cannot be that cheap.
So before the Covid-19, when I could take a week or more of vacation from work, I would take a night bus or a cheap low-cost flight to some lesser-known cities in South Thailand. Every time I went to southern provinces in Thailand, I ate a variety of cheap street food and ridiculously cheap tropical fruits, to the point that I thought I ate enough fruits to consume for the rest of my life. And it’s not the first time I’ve been to Thailand purely for food and tropical fruit trips and then back to Malaysia.
Anyway, wouldn’t it be the happiest dream of all to be able to eat these 30 or more delicious, freshly picked tropical fruits at the price of USD $16 every day! Indeed when I put all the heavy mangos in the grocery bags along with other more groceries and walked towards the taxi stand from the hypermarket, it was so heavy that my arms and shoulders were in unimaginable pain, ???? but the pain was nothing just thinking I could eat sweet mangoes every day. Haha????
As I already mentioned earlier, the name of the seasonal mango I bought is called Mango Susu, translated from Malay, it means literally milk mango. When ripe, the slightly bright yellow flesh turns into a beautiful deep yellow. And it is much sweeter than sugar.
When medium-ripe, it has a good crunchy texture, and when fully ripe, it melts in your mouth very softly. No matter what state you like the mango in, it is really delicious for each stage by itself.
But I like a very crunchy, moderately hard texture, so most of the mangoes I pick are very hard, almost stone on supermarket shelves. In the case of this mango susu, when purchased, the skin color of the mango is all green, and even when ripe, the inner flesh turns more yellow, but the green outer skin remains green.
So, the only way to know if it is ripe is to gently press the surface of the mango skin with your finger and feel it slightly soft on your fingertips, then the mango is already ripe to my liking.
On the other hand, if the skins can be pressed deeply, they are already too ripe that the juices fill your palms as you peel the mangoes.
Moderately sweet, crunchy and hard, I really like the texture of the mango, so I love that you can peel the mango in a circular motion just like when you peel an apple with a little force. The sweet scent of rose flower fragrance that brushes my nose as I peel this mango already lifts my spirits and makes my mouth watery, making me feel so much happier.
I eat about 30 mangos weighing over 15 kg, 2-3 pieces a day, and easily consume them all in 2 weeks at that rate. As I watch my mango reserves decline day by day, I can’t help but regret not having bought more!????
To ripen a mango in a stone-like state to a edible state, leave it at room temperature as it is and wait at least two days, or at most four days. You will find that your mangoes will ripen surprisingly quickly.
After two days, touch the surface of the mango, and if the skin dents with a soft feeling on your fingertips, put it in the refrigerator to prevent it from going overripe. This is especially important if you prefer your mangoes slightly crunchy like I do.
So, I put newspaper on the kitchen floor and spread it all over so that the mangoes don’t stick to each other. Already the kitchen is full of mango scent.
I eat these deliciously ripe mangos as a fruit as a dessert or snack between meals. Or, I put nuts in plain yogurt and add a large cut mango together, and it’s great for one meal. In particular, it is the simplest and most satisfying, but of course it also saves a lot of time.
And, when the mango becomes too ripe at the end after nearly two weeks, I use it as a baking ingredient in mango muffins, pancakes with mango, and mango bread.
And if the mango becomes too soft to eat, you can make a mango shake by adding milk. In the hot and muggy Southeast Asian weather here, there is nothing like this home-made and most delicious tropical fruit juice.
Check out my youtube video for super delicious mango pancakes and mango muffin recipes. In particular, my mango pancakes are a gluten free recipe. This is a very simple and delicious pancake made using chickpea flour instead of wheat flour. Happy eating!????????
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