Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 289 kcal | 82 kcal |
| Protein | 3.4 g | 1 g |
| Fat | 1.3 g | 0.4 g |
| saturated | 0.3 g | 0.1 g |
| Carbohydrate | 66.4 g | 18.8 g |
| sugars | 61.9 g | 17.5 g |
| Fibre | 7.9 g | 2.2 g |
| Sodium | 5 mg | 1 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 1.7 kg mango
- 12 cups pineapple
Instructions
- Use mango that smells of mango at the stem end. Underripe fruit is fibrous and sour and no amount of drying will change that; there is no sweetener here to hide behind.
- Cut the woody core out of the pineapple. It blends into hard specks that stay hard, and they are unpleasant to find in a soft sheet.
- Blend the two to a smooth puree with no threads left. Mango fibre runs in long strands, and any that survive the blender show up as tough lines through the finished leather.
- Let the puree stand for a few minutes and knock the froth off the top with a spoon. Every bubble you spread onto the mat becomes a hole that the sheet tears at when you lift it.
- Spread it on a non-stick mat to an even layer, slightly deeper around the outside than in the middle. The rim meets the most air and finishes first, so it needs more to work through.
- Dry at 40 °C for 7 hours. The pineapple acid keeps the colour bright, so judge this one by touch rather than by any change in the way it looks.
- Press the middle with a fingertip: done means tacky but not wet, with nothing coming away on your finger. Lift a corner to check it releases in one piece before you commit to peeling the whole sheet.
- Cut or tear it, roll the pieces in baking paper, and keep them in an airtight tin with a moisture absorber. Pineapple leaves this leather sweeter and stickier than most, so it wants the absorber, and it holds about a month in the cupboard.
