Fresh Fruit Salad

There are no hard and fast rules as to what fruits can go into the salad. My family’s preferences include mangoes, melon, bananas, seedless grapes and apples. Papaya and pineapple are good choices too. You can even add buko to your fruit salad.

I recommend chilling the fruits (in the fridge, not in the freezer), as well as the cream and sweetened condensed milk, before preparing the salad.

Some fruit like bananas and apples discolor fast. If you don’t intend to assemble your fruit salad immediately, you may want to toss your sliced bananas and apples with a little lemon or kalamansi juice to retard the discoloration process. Aside from that, there’s not much to making a fresh fruits salad. Just remove all inedible portions of the fruits and cut into more or less the same sizes.

Then pour in your dressing and toss. Most people prefer a 1:1 ratio of cream and sweetened condensed milk but my taste buds say that’s too sweet. I prefer a 1:2 ratio — one part sweetened condensed milk to two parts cream. Just stir them together, pour on the fruits and toss. How much depends on the amount of fruit you have prepared. As a guide, for four mangoes, half a melon, four bananas, one apple and a cup and a half of grapes, I used one cup of cream and half a cup of sweetened condensed milk.

Once the salad has been assembled, place in a covered container and keep in the fridge until needed.