Fruit Salad with a Twist

Sweeten the seasonal menu with refreshing renditions of common and not-so-common fruit combinations.

By Jody Shee

As you set aside hearty soups and earthy root-vegetable dishes for lighter spring and summer fare, consider the color, flavor and healthful message you bring to the plate with a refreshing fruit salad. But not just any fruit salad.

Surprise your guests with something out of the ordinary.

Sweet on varieties

"Use similarly tasting exotics in familiar recipes for new and exciting outcomes," says Bill Scepansky, corporate chef for Four Seasons Produce, Inc. in Ephrata, Pa. Instead of using navel or mandarin oranges in ambrosia, Scepansky suggests cara cara or blood oranges. Or, switch to something different in the citrus family, such as oro blanco or pummelo.

Since the flavors are similar, if a fruit salad calls for strawberries, use kiwifruit. Scepansky says it's a way to add green to a colorful salad when there aren't many green fruits available.

Wendy Brodie, HAAC, a Carmel, Calif.-based executive chef, caterer, cooking-class instructor and host of "Art of Food" on PBS, loves the color and texture of kiwi. "We think of kiwi as generally green," she says. "However, one of the oldest varieties is gold, which is a little sweeter and tastes slightly creamier."

If a salad uses peaches, plums or nectarines, substitute persimmons, Scepansky says, but use firm fuyu persimmons, which are less astringent than other varieties, and have a taste similar to that of stone fruit.

Creative combinations

Consider other harmonious ingredients, including herbs, vegetables and protein, to add to the salad to bring in more flavor, texture and color.

To green and gold kiwi slices, Brodie adds shredded cooked chicken or smoked duck breast for a mock Chinese salad. "Add a little crunch of fried noodles, a little vinaigrette of your choice," she says. "Or even some candied nuts would be delicious."

"I infuse fresh herbs into a vinaigrette, and add it to fruit salads," says chef/cookbook author George Geary of Corona, Calif. To make his fresh-herbed fruit salad, he boils red-wine vinegar with ground pepper and tarragon, and cools it to room temperature before whisking in Dijon mustard. Then he adds a steady stream of olive oil, and pours the mixture over a bowl of cut fruits-melons, oranges and pears.

Watermelon combined with shiso makes a great salad to accompany spicy pork belly, says Anita Lo, chef/co-owner of New York's Annisa, which serves contemporary American cuisine with Asian accents. "The pork belly is rich and spicy, and, on the other hand, you have this cooling, watery, sweet salad," she says.

One of Scepansky's favorite salad combinations is watermelon with crumbles of feta cheese. "The cheese is salty and mild and helps bring out the sweetness of the watermelon," he says. To add a sour element, he dresses it with a bit of lime juice, and for spice, tosses in arugula.

Travis Timberlake, chef de cuisine at Ceiba in Washington, D.C., gives a Latin-fruit twist to his baby-spinach salad dressed with applewood-bacon vinaigrette by adding chopped cherimoya. "Wait until the fruit is very ripe. It's not at its prettiest then, but it has its sweetness," he says. "The texture is creamy, pretty soft and very dense."

Faz Poursohi, chef/owner of four Faz restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area, creates a colorful summer fruit salad that features grilled prawns and avocados. He dresses organic baby greens, cherries and cubes of blood orange and cantaloupe with pomegranate vinaigrette. Avocado halves are grilled, and their centers are filled with a chipotle aioli. After he places the avocado on the salad, Poursohi sprinkles mango cubes over the salad, and nestles grilled prawns next to the avocado.

"The taste is fabulous," he says. "You get a kick with the chipotle aioli, and you have the clean pomegranate vinaigrette with fruit and lettuce."

For a simpler presentation, Poursohi makes grilled-prawn/melon salad. He mixes and tosses cut Belgian endive with thin slices of fuji apples, cubed cantaloupe and Gorgonzola dressing, stacks it over mixed organic baby greens and sprinkles raspberry vinaigrette on top with toasted hazelnuts. He finishes by adding three large prawns and a lemon wedge.

"The Gorgonzola goes fabulously with fuji apples, and the Belgium endive adds a bit of bitter," he says.

Tweak the everyday

Add a fruity surprise to Waldorf, Caesar and potato salads. Using Waldorf salad as a template, replace the apples with pears, and blend with yogurt rather than mayonnaise, says Bart Goldberg, chef/president of Welldone Restaurant Concepts, a foodservice-consulting company in Los Angeles.

Scepansky suggests swapping out the apples in Waldorf salad with cherimoya. "It has such a rich, succulent custardy texture, which is great for Waldorfs, and will give it a tropical coconut/piña-colada component," he says, adding that pureéed cherimoya can be used for some of the mayonnaise.

And for a sweet twist on potato salad, "use cooked sweet potatoes, pineapple, green onion and a sweet/sour-style vinaigrette instead of mayonnaise," Scepansky says.

Goldberg recommends a Caesar fruit salad. "There's no reason why good fruits wouldn't hold up to Caesar dressing and Parmesan cheese," he says. He recommends using nectarines or other stone fruit, and adding chicken for protein.

Instead of creating a heavy slaw, add refreshing combinations of flavors. Scepansky makes apple/beet/horseradish slaw to accompany smoked trout on a buffet table. "Beets are sweet, but earthy," he says. "Adding Granny Smith apples lightens the color and adds an acid quality to balance the earthy beet. And the horseradish gives it a little pep."

Power in presentation

Fruit salads don't have to be served raw. Goldberg suggests grilling the fruit, or presenting a grilled/raw combination. "In the same vein, consider oven roasting, but with that, stick to the heartier fruits," he says, adding that cooking helps to concentrate the flavors.

And consider delivery methods other than in a bowl or on a plate. For example, make a pizza crust with or without tomato sauce, "But at least oil it with olive oil," Goldberg says. "And you could add cheese, which would play nicely with fruit salad. Bake the crust off in the oven, and top it with your fruit salad."

Given the compatibility of apples with Cheddar cheese, consider serving Waldorf salad on a pizza crust with melted Cheddar. Or, sprinkle a pizza crust with sugar and cinnamon for a dessert pizza. "Out of the oven, drizzle it with chocolate syrup, then add the fruit salad and whipped cream," says Goldberg.

For a fruit-salad wrap, he suggests filling a lettuce cup with favorite fruits, and, depending on the ethnic slant of the cuisine, including rice noodles, toasted pine nuts or walnuts.

Hollowed fruit makes a container for fruit salad. Brodie scoops a golden kiwi, and turns the flesh into little balls that she calls "kiwi caviar," which are served inside the kiwi container with mint. "Citrus, melons, pineapples and papaya make great containers and fruit-salad foundations," she says.

Turn fruit salad into a kebab and grill the fruit, Goldberg suggests. "Intermingle with things like different types of squash, which also take to the grill."

To hit the sweet tooth, put away the sugar bowl, and discover the value of fruit's natural sweetness.

Jody Shee is based in Olathe, Kans.