Cooking in Brazil: Fresh Banana Mango Sorbet

Here's another tasty dessert recipe.

Celebrating local ingredients here in Brazil begins and ends with fresh tropical fruit. Here is a simple way to cool down on a hot summer night. This is a super-simple recipe for fresh sorbet – and you do not need an ice cream maker.

Ingredients: (Use more or less – it’s totally flexible)

4 – 6 bananas (Choose your favorite: banana prata, banana d’ agua, banana ouro, banana nanica, banana maçá, banana figo…)

2 ripe mangos (Again, choose your favorite: manga rosa, manga espada, manga carlotinha – or the one that hit you on the head while waiting for the bus yesterday ;-) …)

1 lime (or 2 if they are small)

Sugar (I used artificial sweetener – Luiz is a diabetic with a sweet tooth)

Procedure:

Peel the bananas and chop into pieces about an inch long. Place in a bowl. Slice the large pit out of the center of the mango. Remove the mango fruit from within its skin. This is done by scoring all the way through the fruit, but not through the skin in a cross-hatch fashion. Then invert the mango half inside out. Slice off the squares of mango. Place in the bowl with the bananas.

Pour about two - three tablespoons of lime juice over the fruit and toss well. This will both keep the fruit from discoloring and push the flavors a bit.

Cover the bowl and place it into the freezer overnight (or from morning to evening). In other words: freeze completely.

Remove the frozen fruit from the freezer and chop it up a bit, it will have all frozen together slightly.

From here you can either simply push the frozen fruit through a CLEAN meat grinder set to fine grinding, OR place the fruit in a food processer using the metal blade and process it for a good 5 minutes or until smooth. You will likely need to stop the processor once or twice and stir up the fruit to keep it puréeing evenly.

Then stir in sugar or other sweetener to your own taste and depending on the original sweetness of the fruit itself.

VARIATION: If you prefer a creamy/dairy version, while the frozen fruit is being puréed in the food processer, add about ¼ - ½ cup of chilled crème de leite and combine well.