I have been majorly into fruit lately. I know that sounds weird… I don’t mean that I’m normally a junk food fiend and have recently discovered fruit. Actually, I am more of a “salty” person (life by the sea?), so I tend to navigate more toward vegetables before choosing the sweet or tartness of fruit.
But, having given up drinking in the new year and going 7 weeks strong, I have developed a craving for fruit. I have this massive bowl of fruit salad in my refrigerator. It usually takes me over an hour to make, and I replenish it probably twice a week… I’m really into fruit right now.
My favorite fruit has to be mango. I absolute love mango! I love sticky rice with mango. I love gnawing on the mango pit to get any flesh I missed with my knife. I love it in smoothies, with raspberries… I love mango (I’ll eat it in a box/I’ll eat it with a fox?).
So, with all these fruit cravings going on, something popped into my head to make an Asian dinner with a sticky mango sauce. Something sweet and spicy. And this dish was born. In addition to fresh mango, I added jalapeño, ginger, soy sauce, brown sugar, rice vinegar, and hoisin sauce. This sauce was a perfect balance of sweet, spicy, and savory!
So, the thing with mango is knowing how to cut it. And if you’ve never peeled and cut fresh mango before, it can seem really daunting. Or maybe it doesn’t seem daunting at all, and you approach it like any other fruit, only to discover this weird pit in the middle. Now what?
So, as suggested, mango has this weird pit in the middle (really??). It’s not a clearly defined seed like an avocado, or seeds like an apple. It’s just this weird, hard pit in the middle of the fruit… When you cut the mango open, the pit looks like fruit but it’s hard and resists your knife. So how the heck do you cut this thing up?? There are a few ways that YouTube peeps will tell you to cut up mango. One way has you cut off the “cheeks” and then slice the fruit in the skin to then fold the skin backwards and slice the fruit off from there. BUT, YOU WASTE SO MUCH FRUIT!!! Please ignore these people. This is not the best way to peel mango. It may seem like the easiest way, but it is such a waste of fruit!
My way, I feel, is the best way to minimize fruit loss. First you need either a very, very sharp knife or a very sharp peeler. Do not pull out your peeler of 10+ years and think that’ll be sharp enough to handle your mango. More likely than not, it’ll give you a big ol’ headache. Cut the bottom and top of the mango off. If using a peeler, peel it more or less like a potato. If using a sharp knife, carefully slice the skin off, keeping your knife at almost 180° degrees (flat) with the skin and taking off only the skin (aka, minimizing how much fruit comes off with the skin).
Once all the skin is off, stand the mango up. You will notice that the fruit is not perfectly cylindrical. You would think that more fruit would be on the fatter side of the fruit, but it’s actually on the thinner side. Cut into the flesh on the thinner sides, aiming for just next to the center of the fruit. Do this slowly. If you feel a “crunch” or resistance, slightly angle your knife outwards and continue to cut.
What happens if you cut off some of the pit? Don’t worry! It’s easy at this point to the cut those bits of pit off of your fruit because at this point, it’s easier to make out the difference between pit and fruit.
After you cut off both thin sides, cut into the thick sides. For these sides, you will only be able to cut into the fruit anywhere from about half an inch to an inch in before hitting the pit. Again, if you hear/feel a “crunch” or feel resistance, angle the knife outward and continue to slice. The pit will be left and it will look like a lot of fruit is still on it. Take a little nibble on it and you’ll notice how most of the fruit has indeed been cut off and most of that center is hard and inedible.
For this dish, the mango is getting tossed into a food processor, so as long as no pit is still attached to the fruit, just toss it right in. If you decide to save some for a fruit salad, you can cut it up as desired from here! Each time you slice up mango, the outline of the pit becomes more and more instinctual.
Okay, back to the recipe… I opted for ground chicken meatballs because they are just so much more healthful for you as well as being much lower in calories than using beef! Stuffed with ginger, shallots, garlic, and a hint of soy sauce and sesame oil, you would never know the difference between chicken and beef. And what’s great is that these are baked rather than fried! No unnecessary calories from frying oil. And these are perfectly cooked through without risking getting overcooked and dried out!
I spooned the meatballs and sauce over stir fry noodles rather than rice because I was having a craving for Asian noodles. Of course you can opt for steamed rice instead… although this is really, really good over noodles 😉😉.
This is a super easy dinner that comes together in under 30 minutes.. perfect weekday dinner!
Enjoy!
Sticky Ginger Mango Asian Meatballs
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Asian
- Cuisine: Dinner
Ingredients
Meatballs
1 lb ground chicken
1” ginger, finely minced
2 garlic cloves, finely minced
1 shallot, finely minced
1 TB soy sauce
½ TB sesame oil
salt & pepper
Ginger Mango Sauce
1 mango, peeled, de-pitted
1 jalapeño, de-seeded
1 – 2” ginger
½ cup soy sauce
2 – 3 TBs brown sugar
2 TBs rice vinegar
2 TBs cornstarch
1 TB hoisin sauce
Garnish
green onions, roughly chopped
mango slices
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 450°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, add the ground chicken, ginger, garlic, shallots, soy sauce, sesame oil, and a large pinch of salt and pepper. With your hands, mix until thoroughly combined. Form into small meatballs about an inch and a half in size, forming between 16 and 18 meatballs. Even line them on the baking sheet. Place in oven and bake 13 to 15 minutes, until cooked through.
Meanwhile, make the ginger mango sauce. Using a food processor or shake attachment for a blender, add in the mango, jalapeno, ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar, cornstarch, and hoisin sauce. Blend/process until smooth. Add the mix to a medium pot and heat over medium flame. Stir often until the sauce thickens. Add the brown sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time until your desired sweetness ~ I preferred 3 tablespoons. Reduce the temperature to low until the meatballs are done cooking.
When the meatballs are done cooking, add them to the sauce and carefully stir until fully coated.
Serve over rice or rice noodles topped with green onions and additional mango slices. Enjoy!
Keywords: meatballs, chicken meatballs, Asian meatballs, Asian chicken meatballs, ginger meatballs, mango meatballs, sticky ginger sauce, sticky mango sauce, sticky ginger mango sauce, sticky ginger meatballs, sticky mango meatballs, sticky ginger mango meatballs
