Green Peach Salad

This lovely salad comes from a cookery book which I just love and can't recommend enough. Genius Recipes, by Kristen Miglore. Its a compilation of recipes that promise to rethink the way you cook. There hasn't been a dud in the bunch. I have loved every one I have tried, and this one here today is no exception!

I don't know if your grocery shops are like my grocery shops. Most of the fruit they sell at an affordable price is fruit you must ripen at home. So hard and green for the most part. They do sell already ripened fruit, but at a real premium price.

And yes . . . the most annoying thing of all is that it doesn't always ripen at home . . . going mealy and yucky and inedible instead of ripening properly. I get so angry when that happens because it is like pouring money down the drain, and so, I confess . . . if I want to eat a ripe peach or nectarine or plum . . . I will buy the ready to eat and already ripened ones. To me it has always been worth the price.

But what to do with those green fruits . . . or peaches. Well, not a problem any longer! This lovely salad takes perfect care of that issue! Oh my, how perfectly delicious it is!

And the best part is it can use the hardest most unforgiving (as the book states) peaches in the pile, in fact the harder the better as they will stand up perfectly to the peeling, pitting and slicing process, staying intact for the whole procedure.

I have added my tips for peeling and cutting. If you don't give this delicious salad a try, you are really going to be missing out on something really special!

*Green Peach Salad*

Serves 4 - 6

This is delicious and makes a great use of the hard peaches you get at the shops. Don't try to make it with fully ripe peaches. They will be too soft and not be able to stand up to the dressin well. This is gorgeous. Talk about making a silk purse from a sow's ear! Adapted from Genius Recipes and accredited to Crook's Corner.

1 kg un-ripened peaches (about 2.2 pounds)

50g of sugar (1/4 cup)

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

2 TBS good quality extra virgin olive oil (I like the Greek, it has a great peppery flavour)

2 TBS fresh mint leaves, cut crosswise chiffonade

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Blanch the peaches for 2 minutes in a bowl of boiling water. This makes them much easier to peel. The peels should just slip off. Make a slice all the way around the middle of the peach, perpendiculary, and twist, it should pull apart very easily. Remove and discard the pits.

Cut into wedges and drop into a bowl. Add the sugar and salt, giving it all a good swish to combine. Set aside to macerate for 10 to 15 minutes. At the end of that time, add the olive oil, mint and pepper. Toss together to coat and serve. This salad should be eaten on the day.

Just a note on technique, to cut leafy herbs such as mint or basil in what is called "Chiffonade," stack the leaves together, one on top of the other, larger ones on the bottom, roll up tightly like a cigar and then slice thinly crosswise with a very sharp knife. (You should never really chop soft delicate leafy herbs such as basil and mint because it ends up bruising them rather too much.)