Mamuang nampla wan

Sour green mango with a thick caramelised fish sauce dip, reduced and cooled before serving.

Shellfish. Not vegetarian — contains fish sauce, shellfish.

Ingredients

3 green mangoes, firm and sour
150 g palm sugar
4 tablespoons fish sauce
4 tablespoons water
4 shallots, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons dried shrimp, pounded
4 bird's eye chillies, sliced

Method

THE SAUCE IS REDUCED AND COOLED, NOT STIRRED TOGETHER. Palm sugar, fish sauce and water simmered until thick and dark, then cooled completely. Mixed cold and unreduced it is salty syrup that runs off the fruit; reduced, it clings in a thick sticky coat.
USE PROPERLY SOUR GREEN MANGO, hard and pale. A ripe or half-ripe one is sweet, and sweet fruit against a sweet sauce leaves nothing for the salt to work against.
Simmer the palm sugar, fish sauce and water 10 to 12 minutes over a medium heat, stirring, until it coats the back of a spoon heavily and a drop on a cold plate holds its shape.
FRY THE SHALLOTS SEPARATELY until deep gold, or use them raw and sliced paper thin -- but do not simmer them in the sauce, where they go soft and disappear.
Cool the sauce completely. It thickens a great deal as it cools and will look too thin while warm.
Pounded dried shrimp, shallots and chillies stirred in once cold. Added hot, the shrimp goes soft and loses its chew.
Peel the mangoes and cut them into thick batons or slice them thinly, as you prefer, and keep them cold.
Cut them as late as possible. Green mango browns slowly at the cut faces and weeps if it stands.
Serve the sauce in a small bowl beside the fruit rather than poured over it, so each piece is dipped and the rest stays dry.
It keeps a week refrigerated and thickens further; loosen with a teaspoon of water.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Thailand · All recipes