Salade de tomates et melon
Bonjours, mes amis! And welcome back to The Kitchen @ Mised Out!
I hope you enjoyed our (all too brief!) tour of French desserts last month! Each of our recipes placed fresh fruit as the star of the show: tarte aux myrtilles, crème au citron, and gâteau aux prunes. Although September marks the transition back to school, we are continuing our celebration of the summer harvest this month with a shift to the savory side.
We want to make that transition easy, so we’re starting this month with an intriguing tomato and melon salad. Chef Rebecca Beaufour was a guest on this week’s A Table des Bons Vivants; her description of this fruit salad was intriguing – to say the least.
While we mostly think of tomatoes as a vegetable, they are technically a fruit from a botanical perspective. Fruit salad is a summertime staple. And both tomatoes and melons are at their peak in late summer. A salad that combines the two makes sense, on paper. In practice, a tomato and melon salad makes more than sense – it’s pure genius. Each of the fruits brings out flavors in the other that you might not notice otherwise. The lemon zest (Chef Beaufour uses lemon verbena instead of zest) and parsley add a complexity and brightness that perfectly highlight the fruit.
Chef Beaufour didn’t share the exact recipe, so we let our imagination run a bit wild and developed our own version. Use the recipe below as a guide, but aim for a fairly equal amount of melon and tomato. Balance here is essential. The result will be a sweet, musky, herbaceous taste with pops of tart acid.
And now, chers lecteurs, without further adieu, salade de tomates et melon – inspired by Chef Rebecca Beaufour.
Salade de tomates et melon
Ingredients
- 1 small cantaloupe melon
- 1 quart cherry tomatoes washed and sliced in half
- 1 Tbsp olive oil extra virgin
- 1 bunch fresh parsley 4-5 branches, depending on size
- Zest of one lemon lemon verbena is a great substitute if you have it on hand
Instructions
Infuse Olive Oil
- Pour the olive oil into a small mixing bowl. Add the lemon zest and parsley. Allow to rest while you work on the fruit.
Prepare the Fruit
- Wash and dry the melon.
- Cut the melon in half and use a large spoon to remove the seeds.
- Cut each half in half again (so you have four quarters) and using the point of your knife, cut the rind off from the fruit.
- Cube the fruit (approximately 1-inch cubes).
- Place the cubed melon and tomatoes in a large mixing bowl. Add the infused oil and toss gently.
- Chill for 2 hours or more and serve cold.