What are the best fruit salads to make in summer?
Sarah, Bradford, West Yorkshire
There comes a point in summer when all meals point to fruit – and to salad. Happily, berries, apricots, nectarines, melon and the like work well in both sweet and savoury recipes. That said, for Naz Hassan, head chef at Pidgin in east London, peaches reign in savoury dishes: “They take salt well, the flavour profile can change completely once seasoned [especially if you add chilli] and the soft flesh absorbs flavour really well.” A good example is Hassan’s tamarind-peach salad, which he starts by sprinkling chunkily chopped peaches with salt “to release the moisture”. A dressing is then made by soaking tamarind “for at least two hours in lukewarm water, extracting the pulp from the flesh, then seasoning with salt and sliced bird’s-eye chillies”. Combine the fruit with the dressing and serve topped with fresh mint, coriander and thinly sliced ginger.
Laura Jackson, chef and co-owner of the canal-side Towpath cafe in London, meanwhile, turns tomatoes and pickled melon into a summer lunch with some mozzarella. “Prep the melon, then salt it to get out any excess moisture. Next, make a simple 2:1 vinegar-to-sugar pickling liquor and, once that’s cool, pour it over the melon, seal and leave to steep.” Jackson suggests dressing chunks of the pickled fruit, tomatoes and cheese with a little of the melon pickling liquor – “It’s nice not to waste it” – then finish with some fresh tarragon or basil and a drizzle of olive oil. “The key is to use the most delicious, ripest fruit,” she adds. “You then don’t need to mess about with it too much.”
Sarah could also turn to chaat – Surender Mohan’s preferred route. “It’s a refreshing, Indian-style fruit salad made with assorted fruits and flavoured with chaat masala and other spices,” says the executive chef of Jamavar and Bombay Bustle, both in London. First, select your fruit: “The most common are apples, bananas, grapes, pear, pomegranate, but you could also add boiled sweet potatoes.” He then adds chaat masala, tamarind chutney, roast cumin powder, black salt, lemon juice, fresh mint or coriander and “a dash” of sugar or honey. “Give it a toss and enjoy cold.”
For Hassan, the ultimate sweet summer fruit flavour just “has to be berries”, to which he adds a little salt and a dressing made with equal parts lemon juice, honey and basil oil (“elderflower oil works even better”). Leave to macerate for about 10 minutes, and there’s no finer partner for some peppery shortbread. “Any shortbread recipe will work, with the addition of nutmeg and equal quantities of long pepper, Timut pepper, black pepper and Szechuan pepper.” Once baked, Hassan “crumbles the shortbread over the berries and tops with whipped cream and a couple of basil leaves”.
As in most things in life, though, the main thing to remember is that simple is often best: “There are so many multitudes of delicious berries, so why would you want to do anything with them?” Jackson asks. “Just put them on a plate and eat them all together.” You’ll find no arguments about that here.
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