How can I make fruit salads more interesting?
Claire, via email
There’s a fine line between a boring and brilliant fruit salad, and it comes down to treating it like you would any other salad. “It’s about layering, it’s about texture, it’s about contrast, it’s about colour,” says Gurdeep Loyal, author of Flavour Heroes. That’s not to say it’s the time to be a maximalist, mind. “If you go for six fruits, then you get into the tinned fruit cocktail territory, so be discerning and use a magic triad instead,” he adds, “although don’t feel the need to use a playground mix of colours.” Sometimes it’s nice to have, say, three red things, so keep it in the family with a mix of strawberries, raspberries and a hybrid berry, like tayberries. That said, Loyal is of the strong opinion that “any fruit salad in the world” will greatly benefit from the addition of passion fruit.
Using nice, ripe fruit is a given, but it’s worth considering how you cut it, too : “A persimmon sliced on a mandoline, for example, is a really lovely thing.” Then, season with salt. “It’s the one thing people don’t do enough,” Loyal adds, although a pinch of brown sugar wouldn’t go amiss, either. And it’s hard to deny the transformative power of spices: “Cinnamon works incredibly well with berries; cardamom with tropical fruit; or try more savoury spices like cumin with mango or pineapple.” It would be a mistake to just stick to the spice rack, though: “Grating ginger on strawberries or mango (with a pinch of cinnamon and some lime, of course) will bring heat, as will freshly grated turmeric.”
