Cherry, Cheese, and Mango Salad: The Winning Recipe from El Comidista’s Guest Contest

The latest edition of our Guest Comidista contest was a burst of freshness. We asked you to send us your best salad recipe, and you did just that, playing with different ingredients ranging from vegetables to fruits, to various preserves, legumes, and grains. We’re eager to try them all, so a small bow to thank you for your participation.

If it were up to us, everyone would win a prize, but we had to choose a single winning salad, and that was Aroa Alemán’s. The choice of ingredients caught our eye – mango and Majorero cheese? Yes, please – as well as the recipe, the photo, the story behind it, and as she herself declares, the “Canarian exoticism.” Everything, really.

As a prize, the winner will receive a super-lot of products from our beloved Petra Mora store valued at 186 euros. This pack consists of 26 different products, including their extra virgin olive oil, creamy cheese, candied piquillo peppers, and Rioja Rosalba red wine. And also other foods from Petra Mora’s own farm, such as beef entrecote.

What a lot of products, huh? What a lot of products, huh?PETRA MORA “Here on the little island of Gran Canaria, we distinguish between mangos and mangas. This recipe uses manga, but I wrote mango (risking my grandmother coming back from the afterlife to give me a slap) to avoid confusion,” the salad creator tells us. She also adds that if you don’t have Majorero D.O.P. cheese – made with milk from Majorera goats in Fuerteventura – you can substitute it with another semi-cured goat cheese.

Ingredients

50g baby spinach
8 cherries
60g mango
60g semi-cured goat cheese

Dressing

15g shelled pistachios
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest
3 tablespoons fresh cilantro
3 tablespoons water
Salt
Black pepper

Instructions

Wash and dry the spinach and cherries. Put the spinach in your favorite salad bowl. Cut the cherries in half, remove the seeds, and place them on top of the spinach.
Cut the mango into small cubes and crumble the cheese with your hands so that it’s the same size as the mango. Add the cheese and mango to the bowl.
Put the shelled pistachios in a mortar and crush them until they’re ground.
Add the oil gradually while stirring, then add the lemon juice and mix again.
Incorporate the lemon zest, finely chopped fresh cilantro, salt, and black pepper, mixing everything well in the mortar until it becomes a thick mixture. Add water until you have a homogeneous dressing.
Pour the dressing over the salad.

Additional Notes:

Secondary Title: This provides a concise summary of the content and can be used for SEO purposes.
Formatting: The text is divided into sections with clear headings for better readability.
Clarity: The translation aims to maintain the original meaning while ensuring clarity and fluency in English.
Cultural Nuances: The phrase “Canarian exoticism” is retained to capture the unique flavor and cultural significance of the recipe.
Ingredient Equivalents: While the original recipe calls for Majorero cheese, the English version suggests a suitable substitute for readers who may not have access to this specific cheese.