I will admit I was both very excited and very nervous to introduce mangoes into Andrew’s diet. Mangoes are a tropical fruit (obviously), and therefore more acidic than many others. This causes them to be slightly more allergenic than most other fruits. Since he turned eight months old last week, I thought it would probably okay to give them a try (recommendations are for eight months or older) and it was! And not only did he not have any sort of reaction, he LOVED them!! I’d say they are up in his top three favorites with peaches and pears. So make your baby something a bit more unique – mango puree!
Mangoes have one large, flat seed on the inside. You can tell the orientation of the seed just by looking at the fruit. To cut a mango, cut lengthwise down just off of the center so that you are cutting parallel to the seed. Don’t worry if you cut too close – your knife will let you know and you can cut a bit farther out.
Repeat the same cut on the other side of the seed so that you end up with two outside sections, and one thin middle section containing the seed. You can discard the middle section.
Score the remaining pieces with a grid of cuts so that you end up with cubes of fruit still attached to the peel. Invert the peel so that the cubes are sticking outward.
Peel the cubes of mango from the peel…
…and toss them into the food processor. (Man, one of my mangoes was really not ripe!) If you toss a few cubes into your own mouth, that’s okay too :)
Puree until the mango has reached the consistency your baby prefers. Add water if necessary to help thin it out (I didn’t need any). If the puree is too thin, thicken with rice cereal just before serving.
Yum!!! I love mangoes!
