Name: Melon, honey and ginger salad
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 175 gm blue gum honey (½ cup); 2 tbsp finely chopped glacé ginger; 1 vanilla bean, split; 500 gm watermelon; 500 gm rockmelon; 500 gm honeydew melon; To serve: vanilla ice-cream

Nothing says Australian summer quite like a fresh fruit salad. Something so simple can become a thing of beauty with the abundance and variety of gorgeous ripe fruit on hand during the warmer months – think berries, grapes, melons, stone fruit, to name just a few. But that’s not to say winter doesn’t provide the goods, with all varieties of citrus including tangelos and blood oranges plus, of course, crisp apples and juicy pears.

Ingredients

175 gm blue gum honey (½ cup)

2 tbsp finely chopped glacé ginger

1 vanilla bean, split

500 gm watermelon

500 gm rockmelon

500 gm honeydew melon

To serve: vanilla ice-cream

Method

Main

1.Combine honey, ginger and vanilla bean and ½ cup water in a small saucepan and simmer over low heat for 8 minutes or until reduced by half. Cool to room temperature.

2.Peel melons and remove seeds, then cut into 3cm cubes. Combine melon and syrup and stand for 30 minutes to marinate. Serve melon salad with scoops of vanilla ice-cream.

For a peach and passionfruit salad, combine wedges of white and yellow peach in a bowl with passionfruit pulp and some baby coriander and serve with Greek-style yoghurt.
For a tropical fruit salad, peel and remove seeds from lychees and combine in a bowl with mango, guava and banana. Combine coconut milk and grated palm sugar in a saucepan and stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Cool, then drizzle over fruit salad and serve scattered with toasted shredded coconut.
Notes