This week’s recipe is a dessert worthy of the bank holiday weekend. It’s my Mango Pudding Pie. Sweet, but not too sweet. Creamy, fragrant, aromatic, with a nutty hobnobby crust. Further down I’m reviewing Nijū, a Japanese restaurant in Mayfair. Is it worth the price tag? Come on in…

I don't wish to give the impression that testing recipes and writing this newsletter most weeks while taking care of an 8 month old baby is easy. It's really hard. I feel guilty every time I turn my head for a few seconds to photograph a plate of food or note down some words. Now Eli is crawling and able to take all the DVDs out of the TV cabinet there's an extra level of fear that turning my attention away for a minute or so could mean a kind of catastrophe too.

But I have learnt some methods that work. I now cook in bursts of 10-15 minute spells, singing at my baby like an undeniable maniac if the vibe gets restless. The door bouncer is a god send. And so is the washing machine as entertainment.

The docs and Google Keep app on my phone are saviours too. When he naps I try to get some words down and that makes it all feel more manageable. Or, as right now, I often write while he breastfeeds (which, now he is 8 months, involves the laptop almost toppling off my knees as he occupies most of my lap). Why put myself through it all you ask? Number one, I am still cooking and so why not? Number two, my maternity pay has run out, and writing this is really the only way I’m making ends meet at the moment! So thank you so much for being here and for reading or cooking from the newsletter. You’re helping me in more ways than you realise.

Recipes like today's are doable for me because everything can happen with big long gaps in between and lots of chilling time is necessary. For the pudding, pastry and for me! Indian Mango season comes around every April and May and I always intend to make something to honour it, but this year I actually managed it. Alphonso mangoes (and Kesar, Dasheri and others too) are prized on restaurant menus (Jamavar’s is always anticipated). They are loved for their fragrance and floral aroma, as well as a heady sweetness in the juice that is particularly special when eaten straight from the stone. I think this Mango Pudding Pie is worthy of the fruit.

So why Pudding? I have become quite enamoured with American ‘pudding’ ever since making Claire Saffitz’s Banoffee Pudding. Nothing in the kitchen is original after all. What is ‘pudding’? It is more or less a milk-based custard, usually set with corn starch. I think there's something so appealing about the texture of pudding (in an Angel Delight kind of way). I enjoy that it's kind of like a flavoured crème patissière that you have licence to eat with a spoon. The layman’s crème pat. Sign me up.

I thought the way Claire caramelised banana in butter before tempering the eggs with the banana-infused cream in her recipe was very clever. And so I've done the same here, with mango. I also took inspiration from Claire's banana cream tart recipe which uses sesame seeds in the crust, and discovered that sesame’s savouriness worked really nicely in the nutty oaty pastry I used here. Thanks to Claire for sparking the idea.

I found in this recipe that the relative acidity from a regular supermarket mango (I’ve since learnt a variety called ‘Tommy Atkins’) went really well alongside an Alphonso in the pudding itself. So I used one of each here. If you can’t find Indian mangoes in shops near you, you can buy a box from Indian grocers online, such as Red Rickshaw, a thing I have done in the past with great success.

Slicing the mangoes for the decoration is fiddly but when they're as orange as these are, they look beautiful no matter what! Besides, there’s something attractive about the messiness involved in eating a ripe mango, so if your slices are unruly that's just the way the mango wanted it. No point fighting it. I hope you love it!

Mango Pudding Pie