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Tropical Spiced Fruit Salad

This recipe is a Carribean twist on regular fruit salad. The original recipe requires preserved ginger, which can be bought at gourmet stores such as Whole Foods, but can be prepared very easily at home. Once a batch of the ginger syrup is made, it keeps in the refrigerator for 2 weeks and can be used in sweet and savory dishes in many ways.

Ginger Syrup Preparation

Ingredients

  • 3 cups water
  • 2 cups sugar*
  • 2 cups thinly sliced fresh ginger (1/2 lb; from a 10-inch piece), left unpeeled

* If using agave syrup as a substitute for sugar, use 1 1/3 cups of agave and reduce the amount of water used to 1 and 2/3 cups.


Directions

  1. Bring water, sugar/syrup, and ginger to a boil in a saucepan.
  2. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
  3. Reduce heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  4. Remove from heat and let mixture steep for 15 minutes.
  5. Pour ginger syrup through a sieve into a clean jar.
  6. Ginger may be used. Retain about half of it for the fruit salad recipe.
  7. Pour syrup into a jar and cover and refrigerate.

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

  • 1 medium pineapple, peeled cored and cubed
  • 2 medium bananas, sliced
  • 2 large mangoes, peeled, pitted and diced
  • 14 ounce can of guava halves, drained and diced. Reserve the syrup for the sauce.
  • 2 ounces of preserved ginger, diced
  • 2 tablespoons of the ginger syrup
  • 4 tablespoons of coconut milk
  • ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

  1. Mix together the pineapple, ONE of the bananas, mangoes, guava and diced ginger.
  2. Pour the ginger syrup, reserved guava syrup, banana, coconut milk into a blender and blend the sauce.
  3. Pour the sauce over the fruit.
  4. Sprinkle with the nutmeg and cinnamon