Fruit Stand Bites

We Anglo-Angelenos just love fruit stands, they're like the safer little sister of burrito bomb taco trucks. And fetishizing them like we're about to do, well, paints us as not just nerds but as gueros. Fuck it! We've wanted for months to figure out a compact small plate or appetizer that brings together the classic curbside combos of jicama, mango, pineapple, watermelon, cucumber, chile, lime and salt into one single bite.

Whereas Eastside L.A. fruit stands leave you stabbing a plastic spork at huge chunks of tropical flesh in a spicy balloon bag, we were looking for a clean and simple Everlasting Gobstopper version. Configuring it for a possible San Diego wedding treat, we decided to keep it bite-sized. Slicing all the fruit elements in common shapes and quadruple-deckering them together in layers worked perfectly for making sure all the flavors hit at once. All we needed was a syrup to tie it together: mango chile. (Photo by Aubrey)

1 serraño chile
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup white sugar
2 mangos
zest of one lime

1. Slice chile into thin circles with quick chop. Toast in a small saucepan on medium high heat for about 2 minutes. Then make your simple syrup by adding water to the chile, stir, and then add sugar. Stir and let cook for about 3-5 minutes, until sugar dissolves. Then remove chile and set aside.

2. Slice your mango: cut it lengthwise, along both long sides of the pit, leaving you with two half-looking pieces of fruit. Gently slice a grid pattern in the mango's flesh holding the skin side in your palm. Don't pres too hard, it'll hurt. Now press the skin side in, inverting the fruit, which will cause squares of mango to protrude from the convex half.

3. Slice the cubes off the peel and into the simple syrup. Then emulsify with an immersion blender. Add lime zest and stir. Let puree syrup sit while you cut your fruit.

1 watermelon
2 cucumbers (wide ones)
1 pineapple
1 large jicama
1/4 cup cilantro

4. Remove skin from your cucumber and the spiky outside from your pineapple -- slice both into thin 2-centimenter pieces. Slice your watermelon and jicama likewise.

5. With a set of shape cutters, play with your food. We liked triangles of even sizes as well as triangles with multiple uneven sizes, stacked vertically.

6. Serve with toothpicks, chopped cilantro, a slight pinch-ette of salt, and topped with a half teaspoon of the simple syrup.

Beverage: Blanche de Bruxelles
Soundtrack: Donovan's "Mellow Yellow"