Other than apples, we could go through dozens of mangoes in a month, simply because we LOVE the fruit. We eat it on its own mostly, but we also love it served with meringues and cream (okay, yogurt when the scale is bouncing off a bit further from the zero).
But you must agree with me that cutting mangoes is one of the most tedious task in the world. Normally I just armed myself with a paring knife, then leisurely slice the flesh off and eat it off the knife. This is not recommended because (A) you might slice your own tongue off, and (B) it is awfully inelegant.
So yeah, there are times when you need to cube mangoes. Such as when you need to eat them with meringues & cream, and only with cubed mangoes that you get to scoop up the perfect ratio of mangoes:cream:meringues.
Here’s a tutorial, courtesy of my BF who painstakingly took these pictures of himself cubing mangoes so that I could post them up on my blog, for you to read. Did I mention, he was cubing mangoes while I lied collapsed in our sofa writhing in pain from the dreaded PMS, because he wanted to cheer me up with mangoes, meringues and cream? Yeah, I love him too.
# – Hold the mango on a chopping board with the slimmest side down.
# – With the knife positioned about 0.5 cm from the eye, cut all the way down. You should miss the seed but not too much that you’d waste mango flesh. Do the same with the other side of the mango. By the way, the eye is that little bulbous ugly thingy on the top of the mango ;)
# – Now, score the mango flesh in a checkered pattern. Cut as close as possible to the skin without damaging the skin.
# – Now pop out the flesh like this by pushing the skin. Beautiful!
# – With a knife, gently lift the flesh off the skin.
# – Voila! Cubed mangoes!
And that, is how you can fairly quickly cube mangoes without making a mess :)