fruit salad

Fruit salad

This is what I call a proper fruit salad, it’s the fruit salad that we used to have as kids after sunday lunch.  This is the very reason I made it this weekend. We don’t have pudding in the week, but we do always have pudding after sunday dinner and we don’t just have one option.  Oh no, there are always at least two pudding options, sometimes three and it has been known to escalate to five if we are having sunday dinner down at my mum’s and there are other guests coming. This week I made chocolate brioche pudding, fruit salad and brandy snaps, and semolina (served with dollops of strawberry jam, of course).

Fruit salad is easy to put together and you can use whatever fruit you have in your fruit bowl, being as exotic or as ordinary as you like.  I much prefer it made in the morning so that it has a few hours for the sugar syrup to take on the fruity flavours and it is lovely the next day too.  Lashings of double cream are almost obligatory and if you have the time then a biscuit such as a brandy snap or a tuile is a wonderful addition.

100g caster sugar ( I always use golden for a lovely caramel colour)
100ml water
juice of 1 lemon
A selection of your favourite fruit, sliced ( I used 1 apple, 1 pear, 1 kiwi, 1 clementine and a handful of grapes)

Method

Place the sugar and water in a pan and heat gently to dissolve the sugar.  Allow to simmer for a minute or so.  Remove from the heat and squeeze in the juice of 1 lemon, this will help to counteract the sweetness of the sugar syrup but also will stop the fruit from turning brown.  Allow the syrup to cool and then add the sliced fruit, giving it all a good mix so that every piece of fruit gets covered in the syrup (to prevent any browning).  Place in the fridge for the flavours to develop, but bring it out about 30 minutes before you want to serve as it tastes much better than straight out of the fridge.

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Clementines in sugar syrup

I made this clementine salad for pudding on my Mum’s birthday and served it with the Victoria Sandwich, which was a very good combination – it was reminiscent of trifle.  It is equally good served on its own or with a splash of cream.  If you want to jazz it up further a splash of orange liqueur in the sugar syrup would be very good indeed.

It is very easy to make and studded with the pomegranate seeds it is jewel-like in appearance.

5 clementines
½ pomegranate
100g caster sugar
50ml water

Method

Using a sharp knife cut the peel and pith off four of the clementines and then slice the segments out of the skin so you have just the flesh and none of the skin.  If you can do this over the serving bowl that will mean that any escaping juice will be caught.  Place the clementine flesh in a glass serving bowl.  Squeeze the juice out of the remaining clementine and pour over the clementine flesh. Hold the half of the pomegranate over the serving bowl and using a spoon bash the skin of the pomegranate so that the seeds scatter into the bowl.

Place the sugar in a small saucepan and pour over the water.  Place over a gentle heat until the sugar has completely dissolved.  Turn the heat up slightly and let the syrup boil for about two minutes until it develops a golden colour. Pour the sugar syrup over the clementines (if you wanted to add a splash of orange liqueur this would be the time to do it) and then chill for a few hours before serving.

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