BBQ Mango Tilapia

When you’re a neophyte chef like me, sometimes even the simplest dishes can be fraught with peril. So I recently discovered when I turned to Hungry Girl’s 200 Under 200 recipe for bbq mango tilapia.

As a big fan of both barbecue and mango, I was beyond excited to try this out. Until I found myself in the fruit section of my neighborhood supermarket in a bit of quandary. What color mango to select? Not realizing that, like bananas (my all-time favorite fruit), green does not equal ripe, I made the wrong choice. Which I discovered as I struggled to slice the stubbornly brittle mango -- and nearly broke a knife in the process.

Hungry Girl’s recipe calls for two teaspoons of brown sugar and one teaspoon of molasses. I faced another dilemma here. Should I modify the ingredients? After all, I’m the amateur and the cookbook is the expert, right?

I opted not to make any changes and, sure enough, found the finished product to be a little too sweet for my taste. Lesson learned -- it’s okay to trust one’s instincts when it comes to making sure a home cooked dish pleases your palette.