In the kitchen with Elisa
Delicious Summery Fruit Salad with Fresh Fruit
Refreshing and flavourful dessert for the hot summer days
Oh, summer, we have been waiting for you so long..please don´t make us wait for much longer.
Anyone else feeling this way? We had some great weather in April and I mean wearing T-shirts and grilling until the night kind of great weather. Then it all went back to being cold and grey and rainy. Unfortunately, I am one of those getting affected by the weather and this gloomy rainy weather is making me feel like I just wanna crawl up under a blanket and binge watch some good series :D But hey, one´s gotta find ways to keep oneself motivated and happy, and my medicine is good-mood-food :) That is what I would call this salad, it is like a warm and sunny summer day captured in a glass.
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There ​is actually a little story behind this salad and I want to share it with you :) Also, please let me know how it is where you live as I find these cultural things very interesting and fascinating :) I grew up in Finland and fruit salads used to be a big thing in my childhood. I remember parents making them for their kids birthdays and pyjama nights. It was something we were always getting excited about and we usually had it with some vanilla ice cream on top. These salads back then were made from this canned mix of fruits called cocktail salad or something of that kind, with some added banana and grapes. It was very sugary as you can imagine, since the canned fruits are typically very sugary and also they are stored in that sugar liquid (which we also loved :D). I am not against canned fruit, but I also love fresh, seasonal fruit and so I took this idea from my childhood and made it fit into what I love and enjoy right now :)
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This salad is not exclusive to these specific fruits that I used in my recipe. You can pick any seasonal fruit and match it together to make a similar salad. I would just suggest to use ripe seasonal fruit that tastes great on its own and so it will bring great flavour to the salad. The problem with using fruit that is not in season is that it often tastes really blunt or sour and this salad is all about that beautiful flavour of the fruit. Also you want to combine really sweet fruit, like here I have banana and honey melon, with some fruit that has a bit of sourness to it, like here I have the lime. If you think the salad needs a bit of extra sweetness then you can add a bit of brown sugar to it or you can alternatively serve it with some good quality vanilla ice cream. I would suggest not to add any extra sugar if you are going to serve it with the ice cream as then it doesn´t really need that extra sweetness. The recipe asks for some as I served the salad just so, without the ice cream.
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If ​you like fruit you will love this salad, as it is packed with flavour, and it is really juicy and refreshing. I think it is a great alternative dessert for the summer months and an excellent way to finish a summer get together or a barbeque.
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Enjoy!
Step by Step Video
RECIPE
Delicious Summery Fruit Salad
Refreshing and flavourful dessert for the hot summer days
​INGREDIENTS
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½ honey melon
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2 peaches
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1 banana
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about 10 medium strawberries
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1 organic lime
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1 tsp raw unprocessed cane sugar
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some fresh mint (I used 4 stalks) (optional)
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DIRECTIONS
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Remove the seeds from the honey melon. Cut the half into two halves and then that half into another two halves. Using a very sharp knife, carefully remove the skin of the honey melon. Then cube the honey melon into bite sized pieces.
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De-stone the peaches and also cube them into similar sized pieces as the honey melon.
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Peel and slice the banana.
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Remove the greens from the strawberries and cube the strawberries.
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Add all fruit into a medium bowl.
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Wash the lime and then grate the skin into the bowl with the fruit. Use just the green part of the skin and stop grating once the white part appears. Then cut the lime in half and juice it.
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To make the salad a bit sweeter mix one teaspoon of raw unprocessed cane sugar with the lime juice before pouring it over the fruit.
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If using mint, remove the leaves from the mint stalks and tear them into the salad.
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Mix the salad thoroughly to cover all of the fruit in the lime juice. Serve right away in transparent serving bowls.
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TIP. You can serve the salad later, but I would suggest to make it as fresh as possible. If making beforehand, store in the fridge and not for longer than for 3-4 hours.
