Mango Lassi

One of the perceived advantages of living in south Florida is having easy access to various tropical fruits--not so! There are many fruit farms in Miami-Dade county that grow such wonderful things like lychees, longans and various types of mangoes, but for some reason we never see them in our local markets. To get lychees and longans, I'd have to make a special trip to the Asian market or trek down south to the farms. As far as mangoes go, I can get gorgeous champagne mangoes from the Asian market (imported from Latin America), or settle with the ubiquitous fibrous variety stocked at all the markets here (also imported from Latin America).

These are the fibrous mangoes from Windixie that have been waiting to ripen on the window sill since Friday afternoon. Not worth the fuss to eat, but just fine as an ingredient in mango lassi, a refreshing Indian yogurt drink that goes very well with spicy foods. I like mine with less yogurt and much more mango flesh. So refreshing on a summer day!

Mango Lassi
(Yields 4 Drinks)

• 2 cups ripe mango flesh
• ½ cup plain yogurt
• ½ cup cold water
• 1 tsp honey, or to taste
• 1 tsp fresh lime juice, or to taste
• Tiny pinch of salt
• Ice cubes

Throw all ingredients into a blender and blitz until frothily smooth. I like to blend this with just a bit of ice and then serve over ice cubes, but you can put all the ice right into the blender to make a smoothie.