Taste of summer: Lobster mango salad

HALLIE EPHRON: With temperatures soaring here into the 90s day after day, the only thing to do is boil a lobster. How can you not, with prices having come down so far? Here in New England we're seeing them as low as 5.99 a pound. I'm afraid it's the silver lining of global warming.

The other day I boiled a 2-pounder, took the meat out of the shell, chilled it, and made a lobster mango salad. It was spectacular. The perfect summer dish.

What makes it work is the bitterness of  arugula and the bite of cilantro and the sweetness of the mango and the lobster. I put the dressing on the lobster and added the lobster to the rest of the (undressed) ingredients because you don't want to overwhelm the greens with the taste of the dressing. 


Hallie's Lobster and Mango and Arugula SaladServes 2

INGREDIENTS FOR THE SALAD
Meat from a 2-pound boiled lobster, chopped into good sized chunks
1 mango (I like the yellow "ataulfo" variety best) peeled and seeded and cut into pieces
1/4 cup of coarsely chopped cilantro
Romaine lettuce
Arugula

INGREDIENTS FOR THE DRESSING
3 T mango chutney (if there are big chunks of pickled mango in it, chop them up)
About 1/4 c rice vinegar
About 1/3 c olive oil
A healthy squeeze of sriracha (hot sauce)

Directions:
1. Make the dressing: Mix together the ingredients. That's it.
2. Toss the lobster with the dressing.
3. Assemble the salad - a layer of lettuce and arugula topped with fresh mango and sprinkled with cilantro - top with lobster and dressing.

We had al fresco it with some French bread and Vinho Verdi --  a light, crisp, and inexpensive (at least the bottle we had) Portuguese wine with a little sparkle.

Share your favorite summer salads...