Fruit Salad

A friend of mine asked me a while back if I had any tips on fruit salad. I wasn't quite sure what they meant. Surely a fruit salad is one of the easiest things in the world to make. But he was persistent enough to get me thinking about it, and I realised that there are a few basic rules that, if followed, will mean the difference between a good fruit salad and a great one. 

Firstly, don't get lazy. A good fruit salad should have at least 4 different types of fruit in it. By having a bit of diversity, not only do you get a lot more taste out of your fruit salad, but it looks a lot more colorful and appealing as well. On the other hand, it is also possible to go too far. Having more than 7 different types of fruit will just make your salad way too confusing to the person your dishing it up for, and a lot of those individual tastes will be lost in the process. Ideally you should be looking at around 4 to 6 different types of fruit.

I personally love tropical fruits. Give me a mango or a pineapple and I am one happy camper. Tropical fruits are also great because they keep in the fridge for a longer period of time than your traditional fruits. I would recommend that you steer clear of fruits like bananas if you want your fruit salad to last a little while, because bananas are notorious for turning your fruit salad into a brown mush. If you really want to have banana in there, leave it until just before you serve and mix it in at the last minute.

Another thing to keep in mind is that a good fruit salad is not all about the eating of it. You want it to be visually appealing as well. My father used to say "What's it matter, it all goes down the same hole", but for the rest of us, we like to have the entire experience when enjoying our desert. For this reason, you should try and have a nice mix of colours when choosing your fruits. Some contrasting colours in your fruit salad will really make it stand out in the crowd.

A Fruit Salad Recipe

I'm going to give you my favorite recipe for fruit salad, but I'm hesitant in calling it a recipe, because there really is nothing more basic than preparing a fruit salad. You just chop your fruit up into bite sized pieces, mix it all together and away you go. When chopping your fruit, it's good to have a little bit of variety in the sizes and shapes of your chunks, as it makes your salad just that little bit more interesting.

First, take two cups full of pineapple chunks, and put them in your bowl. Next, take a couple of chopped kiwi fruits and put them in the bowl. Take a cup of strawberry quarters and add them in the bowl, however if you are not planning on eating your fruit salad straight away, keep the strawberries to the side until serving, as they are another fruit that will spoil fairly quickly.  This is especially true when using pineapple, because pineapples are natural acidic, and this acid will make your softer fruits break down even quicker. 

A little trick that I like doing is using a little lime juice and zest in your salad. Not only does it give it just a little edge, but it adds to the visual experience we talked about earlier, it will keep your guests guessing as to what the secret ingredient is. Another benefit of lime juice is that will help preserve the softer fruits in your salad just that little bit longer. After adding the lime, have a bit of a sneak preview to see how it tastes. If the lime juice has made it a little bit too bitter, you can always add a teaspoon of sugar or syrup to sweeten it back up again, but don't go overboard because the fruits should be doing most of the sweetening by themselves. 

Give your salad a light toss. Try not to be too heavy handed with the spoon, otherwise you will bruise the fruit. As you mix, notice the nice contrast in colours that you have achieved. The kiwi fruit in particular is a great addition as far as colour is concerned, because there are not a lot of green coloured fruit that are traditionally used in fruit salads. Another alternative to kiwi fruit is to use a few shredded leaves of mint to your salad. Mint will also give it an edgy taste and goes great as a companion to a lot of fruits.