Norpro Grip-EZ Mango Splitter - N11
We don’t often go for tools that are single-taskers. Sometimes however, if they do the job so well, then it’s worth it. One tool that falls into this category is the mango splitter.
Mangoes are both delicious and healthy, but also a little tough to deal with. A mango has a very large center seed that doesn’t come it easily--it needs to be cut around. And then it has a tough outer skin that doesn’t slip away from the fruit, but needs to be almost pried off. All of this takes a somewhat creative approach! But even Kennedy, the “knife guy”, yields to the use of Cool Tools that are both more efficient and much safer to use.
Here’s what a mango splitter does. First, it separates the mango into 3 parts: 2 halves with all fruit and skin, and a third center piece, consisting of the large pit, surrounded with a very minimal amount of fruit. Mango splitters have existed for awhile, and we’ve tried several, but the one we found to be the best is the Mango Splitter from Norpro. Here’s why…
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It has a base to hold the mango. We’ve tried models without a base, but the mangoes always threaten to (or actually do) fall over. That’s a balancing act that you don’t want to fiddle with. So to us, the base is an important feature.
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The opening of the elliptically-shaped blade for the pit is large enough. In our experience, other models had too narrow an opening for the pit, and we wound up leaving parts of the pit with the fruit halves. Then you have to cut those off, which wasn’t satisfactory and could be slightly dangerous.
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While even Norpro doesn’t realize this, the base of the Mango Splitter also acts as a skin peeler. Mangoes are notoriously difficult to peel because of the thick tough skin, but a thin curved object like a glass, or, in this case, the top edge of the Mango Splitter base can be inserted between the flesh and the skin of the mango, and then worked around to separate the skin from the flesh.
So, although this may be a unitasker because it’s designed to work only with mangoes, it deals so well with mangoes that this is definitely a go-to Cool Tool. Great functionality; great design!
Facts:
- 6.75"/17cm x 5"/13cm x 1.88"/5cm overall dimensions
- Elliptically-shaped Blade: 2½”/6.35cm length; 1”/2.5cm deep; 1”/2.5cm width at widest point
- Comfortable, non-slip, santoprene grip with micro serrated stainless steel blade
- Comes in 2 separate pieces: base and blade with handles
