Tropical Fruit Salad And The Mother Of All Gins

Don’t know what to make when you’re short on time and you’ve been asked to bring dessert? A tropical fruit salad will see you right. 

I had to make a dessert for a large number of people last week and my oven is known as The Horror so I couldn’t bake. What do you do when you need to impress but you’re also a bit hungover and have to get your first haircut in two years? You chop some tropical fruit and hope for the best! 

The portions below are for a crowd of between 15 to 20. It’s a hand dessert in terms of allergies and food intolerance as there is no gluten or dairy in it. There is also very little added sugar (well honey) so it is an excellent option for those that health conscious. It also means you will have some space left for when the cheese board comes around.

I decided to make it extra exotic by excluding the more common fruits in favour of more unusual flavours and textures. No apples, bananas, oranges or kiwis for this beauty. 

Ingredients

• 3 punnets of blackberries
• 3 punnets of blueberries
• 1 large punnet of mixed seedless grapes
• 2 mangos
• 3 passion fruits
• 5 figs
• 3 star fruits
• 1 pomegranate
• 1 heaped teaspoon of Sarah’s Zesty Honey With Ginger 
• 1 bunch of fresh mint

Good To Know

• I buy the honey in my local supervalue but if you can’t find it you can simply add a teaspoon of grated ginger powder (half a teaspoon if you’re using the fresh stuff) and a squeeze of lemon. 
• I bought the figs, star fruits and passion fruit in Fallon & Byrne in Dublin but the rest came straight from the local Lidl. They normally have gorgeous pomegranates and tend to stock passion fruits too. 

Method

• Rinse and pat your fruits dry.
• Deseed the pomegranate.
• Thinly slice the star fruits and quarter the figs.
• Cut the mango whatever way you can.
• Shred the mint.
• In a bowl mix the flesh of the passion fruits with the honey until the dressing is nice and loose. 
• Drizzle the dressing on top of the salad and toss until it coats all the fruit.
• Serve at room temperature.

Tropical Fruit Gin Coctail

• Take a large bowl glass
• Place two heaped teaspoon of the fruit salad at the bottom and top them with a few ice cubes
• Pour a measure of your favourite gin on top and finish it up with twice the tonic.
• I used Mor Irish Gin which the distillery kindly gifted me a bottle off (neat trick as I know love the stuff and will be buying it for a long time to come) and Fever Tree tonic which is onsale in most supermarkets in Ireland.