Thickening For Fruit Salad Recipes

Steps:

• Bring orange juice, lemon juice, brown sugar, orange zest, and lemon zest to a boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in vanilla extract. Set aside to cool.
• Layer the fruit in a large, clear glass bowl in this order: pineapple, strawberries, kiwi fruit, bananas, oranges, grapes, and blueberries. Pour the cooled sauce over the fruit. Cover and refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours before serving.

Steps:

• Place sugar, 3/4 cup water, chile and star anise in a small pot and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes until the mixture is as thick as maple syrup and spicy tasting. Strain syrup. (Syrup can be made up to 1 week in advance; store in the refrigerator.)
• Toss fruit with half of the sugar syrup, the tarragon and the basil. Add more syrup to taste, depending on how sweet and spicy you want the salad. Season very lightly with salt and pepper. If desired, add dollops of mascarpone or crumbled ricotta salata on top.

Steps:

• Prepare the fruit with a small serrated knife. Cut the top and bottom off the kiwi, stand it up on one of its flat surfaces and cut away the skin, keeping the knife as close to the skin as possible. Slice in half, following the core through the centre, then cut each half into slices. Put in a bowl and repeat with the other kiwi.
• Carefully cut the skin off the mango and slice off each cheek, running your knife as close to the stone as you can. Cut each piece into slices. Remove any remaining fruit from the stone in long thin slices. Add the mango to the kiwi.
• Top and tail the pineapple, then in a similar way to the kiwi, cut away the skin. Use your knife to go around the pineapple, taking out the divets or eyes, two to three at a time, you'll be left with a spiral pattern weaving around the outside of the fruit. Take of a circular slice, roughly 150g, quarter, remove the core then cut into chunks. Add to the bowl.
• Halve the grapes and add to the rest of the fruit along with the berries, you may want to slice or halve strawberries if they're large. Remove the peel from the orange using the same method as the kiwi and pineapple. Holding the orange over the bowl of fruit, remove the orange segments by carefully cutting between the membrane and the fruit. The pieces should fall out into the bowl along with any juice. Squeeze the membrane over the fruit to extract the juice, add a drizzle of honey, if you like. Mix everything together and leave in the fridge to macerate for 30 mins, if you have time.