Mangoes are delicious, sweet fruits, but cutting them can be a chore. This is because mangoes have an inedible skin as well as fibrous seeds that are very tough and prickly, but for the most part look like the rest of the fruit, which makes them difficult to identify when cutting. Traditional methods, such as peeling the fruit first, can frequently lead to injuries by leaving the slippery fruit exposed.
Luckily the hilarious chef Alton Brown has uncovered the best way to cut a mango while avoiding the seed and injury:
- First, you identify circles about one inch in diameter on each of the mangoes’ so-called fleshy cheeks, the large areas found on either side of the fruit.
- You then peel all of the skin except for these two circles to provide small areas that you can grip while cutting the mangoes.
- After peeling, cut a small portion off of the bottom of the fruit so that you can stand the mangoes up and cut off the cheeks, which provide most of the meat of the fruit.
- Peel off the small area of skin that is left, then cut the cheeks on a grid system to get beautiful, perfect cubes of mangoes!
