I really dont know whats with me and mangoes. I find gazillion ways and including mangoes in my dishes now and then. I remember, as a child in our earlier home in Chennai. my dad had planted a mango sapling when I was a baby!. By the time I was in high school, the mango tree used to give lovely green mangoes in the summer. They were not the greatest variety or the best tasting, but there is a certain pride in going in to your own backyard and plucking mangoes from a tree laden with them. There is an aroma to this freshness – the mango perfect and tight, with the milk oozing from the stalk, at the point where it has been severed from the tree. Amma used to make Avakkai pickle, Maavadus from the little ones and of course the regular Mangaa Curry. Summers in Chennai….beyond the heat, had so many memories for me…

One such recurring memory is the regular shopping visits to Nalli, Kumaran Silks etc in T.Nagar. All these store, entice you with their innumerable lovely breathtakingly woven silk sarees, but the mango vendors outside these stores, enticed me to go shopping!!! Amma would give me a firm look as if to say, “Come on, we`ve come all this way to finish Diwali shopping in such short time, and all you can think about is mangoes???” The shopping would be over and we would rejoice and run to the vendors. They would cut the mangoes in to lovely slim long slices right in front of your eyes and then cut out little patters on top to resemble a little crown made of sticks…..the mangoes would be so tender, they would bend in his arms. He would then roughly pull out a newspaper, dash a little of his secret-ingredient spice powder, and then swathe the mangoes over the powder and hand over the paper to us. Ditto treatment for the pineapple slices. There cannot be a word to describe the taste of those mangoes, wrapped in spice powder,shared with cousins, standing spell bound, in a crowded shopping area……

My effort to recreate the T.Nagar magic was pretty limited, although it does take me on those trips some times. The ingredients are simple and clear – loads of mangoes…

INGREDIENTS:

2 Mangoes cut in to thin slices.

1 spoon salt

1 spoon red chilli powder

A dash of hing

PREPARATION:

• Combine the powders and set aside. Please alter the red chilli powder levels, if you think its soo spicy.
• Arrange the sliced mangoes on a plate.
• Sprinkle as desired and serve fresh.

Spiced Mango Slices are an anytime snack over at my place. Picnics are always a fun place to make them since they are so easy to assemble. They serve as a very simple yet novel starter snack, favourite among the kids and the adults alike…. Its our favourite movie time snack!!!

ENJOY!!!

Sending yummy mango to Shaheen`s favourite snack food event at her blogsite @ www.funandfoodcafe.com.

Reposting for this event.