Fruit salad

Ingredients 

1) ¼ rockmelon (cantaloupe), peeled and seeds removed

2) ¼ pineapple, peeled and cored

3) 1 apple, peeled and cored

4) 2 bananas, peeled

5) 1 cup green grapes, washed

6) 2 passionfruit natural yoghurt, to serve

Method:

1. cut the rockmelon, pineapple, apple and banana into roughly 2-cm pieces.

2. Mix all the fruit in a bowl then serve with fresh, natural yoghurt.

3. store the fruit salad (without the yoghurt) in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

HINTS AND TIPS:

* You will need—cutting board, cook’s knife, peeler, paring knife, cup measure, bowl and storage container.

* This is the most basic fruit salad recipe and can therefore be adapted to any fruit, but please consider the following tips.

* When cutting fruit, it is recommended that all fruit is cut the same size, but not necessarily the same  hape. This means fruit can be cut into large pieces, about 5 cm, or into small pieces, 1 cm or less—but don’t be tempted to mix the two sizes as it will look odd, and the smaller pieces can become damaged and mushy from the size and weight of the larger pieces.

* Never be tempted to add many fruits to a fruit salad to make it impressive. Sometimes a combination of 3 well-matched fruits is better than having a mixture of 10.

* Fruit salad is best eaten on the day or, at the very latest, the next day. Some fruits will certainly last longer; however, once mixed, some soft fruits will rapidly break down.

* Bananas, being a very soft fruit, should only be added just before serving. Once mixed and then stored,  anana in a fruit salad will begin to soften quickly and become brown and mushy, making a great fruit salad look unappetising the next day.

* Think about matching hard fruits (as in the recipe) or soft fruits (as in the examples below).

* Melon fruit salad—a mix of equal parts watermelon, rockmelon and honeydew. * Mixed berry and mango salad—once in season, make the most of fresh berries and counter their tartness by adding a mango cut into small pieces.

* Pineapple, papaya and mint salad—mix ½ pineapple, 1 pink papaya (peeled and black seeds removed) and ¼ cup shredded mint. * Citrus fruit salad— 4 oranges, 6 mandarins, 2 pink grapefruit and 1 lime (mint would go well with this salad).

* Banana, strawberry and passionfruit salad—3 bananas, 300 g strawberries and 3 passionfruit (the passionfruit will prevent the banana from browning).

* Strawberry, grape and mango salad—500 g strawberries (hulled and quartered), 500 g green grapes  washed) and 3 mangoes (cut into 2-cm pieces).

* Tropical fruit salad— make use of any tropical fruits like papaya, lychee, mango, longan, dragon fruit, pineapple, star apples, carambola (star fruit), chocolate pudding fruit, mangosteen and bananas.