Honey-Glazed Chicken with Mango Salsa

When I was a kid, we didn't have many exotic choices when it came to fruit. We enjoyed oranges, apples, and honeydew melon, and we munched on dried fruits like raisins and apricots. Many of our parents served us canned or jarred fruits like peaches, applesauce, or those unpalatable (at least to me) fruit cups or cocktails that always tasted like acid or sugar water, depending on the ingredients.

Sometime in the last 20 years, our fruit choices have exploded, maybe as companies have found better ways of transporting fruit across the world. Now it seems like any time of year we can buy pomegranates, ugli fruit, pineapples, and Celia's and my very favorite exotic fruit, mangos.

When Andrew and I first discovered mangos 15 or so years ago, we greedily devoured those fragrant orbs, scraping our teeth along the green skins after we peeled them to make sure we didn't miss any of the silky orange fruit. These days, Celia is the biggest mango fanatic in our house.

Right now mangoes are in season in Puerto Rico and Mexico, so they are less expensive here than other times of year, and I don't suffer the environmental guilt of eating a fruit that travelled all the way from Asia. After school, 12-year-old Celia can devour a whole mango in one sitting, so I buy 2 or 3 a week. Mangos also make fantastic additions to salsa, smoothies (we buy them frozen for this), cocktails, and chicken or fish dishes like the Honey-Glazed Chicken with Mango Salsa below.

How to Cut a Mango

Some people are baffled by how to cut a mango because of the smooth skin and large oblong pit in the center. Here is my favorite method: Stand the mango on its end and slice each of the halves off as close to the oblong pit as possible. Using a small, sharp knife, score the flesh into strips or squares, turn the skin inside out, and cut the flesh off of the peel. For more techniques and ideas, I love the resources from the National Mango Board.

If you are feeling stuck in the same old routine, be adventurous and try a new fruit this season. For some more truly exotic fruit ideas, you and your kids might enjoy looking at some of these unusual fruits from around the world. What is your children's favorite exotic fruit?