Mira and I spent days playing phone message tennis but finally we got a chance to chat about this scrumptious mango jam and how a little side-line to her catering business has become an all consuming passion.

Mira has worked in the food industry for 8 years and through this, developed an extraordinary passion for food. Her background is a well rounded mix of manufacturing, process development, new product development and food consulting including a sizeable project with Jamie Oliver, which gave her a really good footing to start up her own food company.

It was a combination of her background, her pronounced passion for food and her creativity in the kitchen that made her decide to run her own food business. Luckily, she already had a name for it “The Mango Jam Company” which she came across 5 years earlier during her travels and bought the web domain!

She gave up a consulting career with a prestigious city firm to pursue her passion, and started the Mango Jam Company late 2007 as a catering firm, cooking up quirky homemade meals and canapés for private parties. She was quickly inundated with questions about the “mango jam”, as clients would naturally expect a company called the Mango Jam Company to make and sell Mango Jam! So after a quick dabble in the kitchen, she developed the recipe and Mango Jam was born!

Making the jam in your mum’s kitchen must be a messy affair – how much do you make in one go?

Being from the food industry, and armed with a MSc in Food Science and lots of experience in ‘scaling up’, it was a relatively easy feat to scale up from a tiny pan to 30kg pots….the key is to be organised with everything batched up beforehand….the rest is a doddle!

What’s the twist?

There’s a cheeky ginger kick which complements the mangoes wonderfully and adds a warmth and depth to all the fruitiness.

Your mango jam is really packed full of flavour, what’s your secret?

The jam has 135g of fresh mangoes per 100g of jam, which equates to 75% cooked fruit once we’ve peeled and stoned the mangoes… this is almost twice as much as leading high street jams (40%). Our jam also has half the total sugar as standard jams at 32g / 100g vs. 65g / 100g… so not only does it taste fantastic, it’s also a healthier alternative to other sugar-packed, fruit-deprived jams.

Where can we get some?

There are about 15 stockists around the country at the moment…and growing…you can find your local stockist details on www.mango-jam.com where you can also buy it on line for just £5.00 including postage and packaging…a bargain!

Here are Mira’s tried and tested uses for this wonderful Mango Jam…

• Toast / Cheese on toast /  Panini / crostini with some soft blue cheese
• Porridge
• Yogurt with granola
• Cheese board
• With foie gras
• Desserts – either a cheesecake topping (use coconut biscuits as the base – yum!), or at the bottom of a creme brulee
• As a marinade for chicken or salmon – mix with a tiny bit of oil and soy sauce
• As a dressing – mix with a tiny bit of sesame oil & lemon / lime juice or olive oil & balsamic vinegar
• A jam tart topping (I’m not convinced, but my friend tried it for her kid’s party and loved it!)
• Mango champagne Bellini

“I think it’s definitely worth trying with turkey as the new Cranberry for 2008!”

I’ve recently become addicted to eating crackers with Philadelphia, topped with Mira’s Mango Jam – it’s delicious and I can’t wait to try the Bellini, what a fabulous idea! Let me know if you think of any other ways of using Mango jam.