Mango Pico

Makes about 4½ cups Preparation Time: 10 minutes Can be made up to 1 day ahead, covered, and refrigerated

The sweet bite of mango combined with the sour-and-spicy flavors of lime and chile make this versatile salsa a hit. It’s a great match for seafood: Try it with grilled salmon, steamed shellfish, or Crab Cakes with Jalapeño Aioli. Eat it on its own with chips, or shatter salsa preconceptions by serving it over ice cream or sorbet or with Alisa’s Marbled Pound Cake.

You can substitute for the mangoes any fruit that has a sweet note and a hint of acidity, such as peaches, pineapples, or plums.

• ⅓ cup slivered red onion
• ¼ cup freshly squeezed lime juice, or to taste
• 4 cups peeled and diced mangoes (about 2½ pounds)
• 1 jalapeño or serrano chile, halved, seeded if desired, and finely chopped, or to taste
• 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped cilantro leaves and top part of stems
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher or coarse sea salt, or to taste

1. Toss the onion and lime juice together in a small bowl and let sit for at least 5 minutes to macerate and soften a little.
2. Place the mangoes, chile, cilantro, oil, and salt in a large bowl. Gently fold in the red onion mixture. Taste, and adjust the seasoning if needed.

MEXICAN COOK’S TRICK: For this salsa, I love to use ripe Champagne mangoes, known in Mexico as mangos ataulfos, but any mango works. I also like the Kent variety, which is a bit meatier and firmer. You can use ripe and sweet mangoes or those that are greener and more acidic—just adjust the salt and chile as needed to balance the flavor.

Controlling Chile Heat Fresh chiles are capricious. Although you can count on different varieties of chiles to deliver different levels of heat (for instance, a habanero is a lot hotter than a jalapeño, chiles of the same variety and even those from the same plant may vary wildly in their heat level.

To get an upper hand on their mischief, it’s a good practice to add chiles to recipes gradually, since it’s almost impossible to tamp the heat down once you have taken it too far. (Adding water won’t help.) Start with a small amount, taste, and add more until you get the level of heat you are comfortable with. Remember that, generally speaking, a salsa that contains mashed or pureed chiles will become milder as it sits in the refrigerator.