Minted Fruit Salad
Serves 3-4
So I really like the idea of serving fruit salad (light) with little cookies (less light) after a big dinner. However, I could really use some ideas for presentation—I wound up just piling the cookies along the side of the fruit salad bowl, but they didn’t look that inspired, plus they got soggy. If any expert platers have thoughts, I’d love to know (in the comments)! Read the original post here.
Ingredients
1/2 cup blueberries
2 kiwis, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch dice
1 Asian pear, seeded and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 crisp apple, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 orange, peeled with sections cut out
1 2-inch piece of orange peel*
1/2 cup mint, chopped
1/4 cup sugar
Cookies, homemade or purchased
Combine the sugar with about 1/2 cup of water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then turn off the heat, add the mint, orange peel any orange juices that streamed out while you were cutting out the sections, and let it come to room temperature.
Meanwhile, combine the fruit in a serving bowl with the chopped mint. When the syrup has cooled, add it to the bowl. Toss well, and refrigerate until serving. Garnish with simple sugar cookies or purchased cookies, like ‘Nilla wafers or ginger snaps in some original and appealing way.
TIP: A kitchen job I had while in college taught me all I needed to know about carving sections out of oranges. Here’s what you do: with a paring knife, cut the tops and bottoms from the orange so it sits flat. Then cut off the peel and the pith all around, so you have a naked-looking orange. Holding this in your left hand, use a smaller knife to cut around each section, letting the juice drip into the salad bowl and dropping sections in as you go. If this sound impossible, skip the orange, or peel off the pith in some other manner.
that’s not Cara! Pictured: fruit salad and Jill in Cara’s chef hat
