Tropical fruit salad recipe
The exotic flavours of lychee, pineapple, jackfruit and melon work in close harmony here, enhanced by a spiced vanilla syrup. It’s fine to use tinned fruit if you can’t get hold of fresh – in most supermarket sections you can source tinned (yellow) jackfruit and lychees in syrup or water. You can find plump Madagascan vanilla pods online but these can be expensive so vanilla extract would be fine to use too.
Ingredients
For the vanilla syrup- 100 g caster sugar
- 1 vanilla pod, split lengthways and seeds scraped out, or 1tsp vanilla extract
- 0.5 lime, juice only
- 1 sprig of mint, leaves only, chopped, to serve
- 200 g pineapple flesh, cut into 1cm (0.3in) cubes
- 0.5 cantaloupe melon (150g/5oz peeled), skin and seeds removed, cut into 1cm (0.3in) cubes
- 200 g drained tinned lychees, cut into halves (fresh if available, stones removed)
- 100 g tinned jackfruit, cut into 1cm (0.3in) pieces (optional)
- 150 g strawberries, cut into quarters
Details
- Cuisine: Mauritian
- Recipe Type: Fruit
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation Time: 25 mins
- Cooking Time: 5 mins
- Serves: 6
Step-by-step
- First make the vanilla syrup. In a saucepan over a medium heat, add 100ml (3.3floz) water and the sugar. Stir until the sugar has dissolved.
- Increase the heat and leave to simmer for 2 minutes to turn slightly syrupy.
- Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla seeds or vanilla extract. Add in the pod and the lime juice. Leave to cool slightly.
- Mix all the fruit together in a large bowl.
- Pour the syrup over the fruit. Stir gently, transfer to serving bowls and scatter over the mint leaves to serve.
This recipe is from The Island Kitchen: Recipes from Mauritius and the Indian Ocean by Selina Periampillai. Published by Bloomsbury, £26.00, available now.
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