Sweet and Spicy Fruit Salad

One of my favourite desserts is fruit salad, either winter or summer, and this is one of my favourite recipes.   

A spicy fruit salad that combines both the sweet and the spicy.  A sweet honey sauce is lightly spiced with cinnamon, cardamom and star anise.   

The result is amazing.

And the best part is that the syrup is made without any sugar.  Fruit has its own sweetness without the need to add more sugar.   Only rarely do you need to add sugar, except perhaps when cooking fruit and even then, you can usually reduce the amount of sugar without affecting the recipe.

Preparation time:  10 minutes
Cooking time:  5 minutes
Serves: 4 - 6

Ingredients

1/8 cup water
1/8 cup orange juice
¼ cup honey
1 cinnamon stick
3 cardamom pods
1 star anise
4 portions of fruit

How to Make

1. First you need to make the syrup and allow time for it to cool. To make place water, orange juice, honey, cinnamon stick, cardamom pods and star anise in a small saucepan and place over a low heat. Bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. Remove the cinnamon stick, cardamom pods and star anise.

2. Now you need to prepare the fruit. I used watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries and green grapes because they were available, but you could also use oranges, pineapple, honeydew melon, mango, lychees, red grapes, kiwi fruit and anything else you fancy. It doesn’t really matter which fruits you use, just think color and try for as many different colors as possible.
   
   How much of each fruit do you need? Again it doesn’t really matter. I cut up enough fruit so that I had filled a large bowl, enough to feed between 4 to 6 people.

3. Cut the melons into bite-sized pieces, hull then either halve or quarter the strawberries (depending on size) and separate the grapes.

4. Combine the fruit in a bowl and pour syrup over. Leave to marinate in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Serving

To serve spoon the fruit into individual serving dishes.  Top each dish with a dollop of vanilla yogurt and sprinkle over chopped pistachios.