Mango: Part Two ~ Mango "Purin" ~

In Japanese, we call them “purin” ( プリン), which basically is the japanese-a-fied pronunciation of the word pudding. There are various types of purin, and anything that is a custard texture inevitably is named this whether it’s actually a pots de creme, a flan, a panna cotta, or a creme brulee minus the burnt sugar crust. Side Note: panna cotta’s in Japan are often actually called panna cotta, but you’ll often see a “milk purin” that is really just a panna cotta. So even that isn’t constant. 

The purin I made isn’t egg based and isn’t baked. It uses gelatin so it’s really a mango panna cotta, but I used a Japanese recipe and we Japanese love mango purin, so I’m calling it that. Accept it.  (Please)

Mango Purin is pretty much the same thing as what dim sum restaurants call mango tofu. Don’t worry, we don’t claim it as one of our own. We love it but we know it comes from Hong Kong cuisine.

It’s fitting that the most famous version in Japan is from The Peninsula Hotel in Ginza since the Peninsula hotel group is a Hong Kong company.  Hopefully I’ll get to eat one myself when I go to Tokyo in December.  I’ve been reading about it for years.

My version isn’t quite as fancy as theirs but it has all the same elements: the custard, the sauce, and the fresh mango chunks. The mango flavor wasn’t quite as pronounced in the custard as I would have liked so next time I need to increase the amount of mango puree used. Also, I would use more whipping cream next time. This version was heavy on milk, and since I only had skim milk I used that. Big mistake. I needed to go all out and use whole milk. It's dessert after all. This was good, just not as good as it could’ve been.

That’s okay. I’ll get my fix in December. Plus, there’s always mango season again next year.