Wine fruit salad in honey dew cup

Fruit salad seems very simple but I’ve had some bad ones. It’s too often a way to waste good fruits with too much sugar. I didn’t want that. 　

The market : the half of a honey dew melon that could have been sweeter, baby bananas, mikan oranges, basil.

Carving the cup.

Pouring red wine.

Cutting the fruits.

Mixing. And eating… Mmmm…

Salty Gourmande, quenching hottest day thirst

It’s so hot and humid, you sweat so much…

…that you even crave for salt ?

Tonight, prepare yourself a refreshing cocktail, a Salty Gourmande. Don’t worry it’s not very loaded in alcohol and you can even make it without. I can’t drink anything strong.

First, let’s make the base.
Juice a handful of litchis (or like me squeeze them and shred the rest of flesh). Add 1/3 lemon juice, 1 ts of black sugar and about a liter of water.
Store a few hours in the fridge. You get a tasty lemonade that you can enjoy on its own.

Salty Gourmande :

Wet half of the edge of a glass and stamp it in a plate of natural sea salt. Half, ahem… I’m training at it !
Put a litchi in the bottom of the glass.
Pour a “finger” of apricot liquor.
Complete with the litchi lemonade.

It’s Shinluchu, Chinese apricot liquor. It’s not very strong. Any apricot liquor can be used. Or you can skip.
The salt is compulsory. That’s natural sea salt, the wet one, because it’s so much tastier. That would be easier to decorate the glass with dried table salt, but you’d lose in taste.

Degustation :
Start drinking from the side of glass without salt and turn a little to grasp a few grains of salt between sweet sips. The contrast brings the freshness.
Finish by eating the litchi in the bottom.

Banbanji, hiyamugi and fruit chu-hi. (Chinese chicken’n noodles)

Ban-ban ji… ban-ban chicken. It’s when the meat is so tenderly cooked that you knock “ban ban” on the table and meat gets away from bones and skin.

The chicken was put in cold water with its skin (no bone as it’s just breast, but legs do wonders too), with chunks of fresh ginger and old leaves of leeks. Brought to boil very softly in 20 minutes, simmered 40 more minutes. Then let on the stove to cool. Refreshed in the fridge. That gives a really tender meat.

I already showed those colored noodles “hiyamugi” (ice-wheat… wheat noodle, to be eaten cooled).

Served with the noodles, cucumber, chili pepper, sudachi lemon… The drink is iced Jasmine tea.

Sauce in the mortar : white sesame, garlic, black vinegar, miso, water. Some add sugar.

Oh, I have bought shochu schnaps for my cherries… It’s an alcohol of sweet potato not very strong (by French standards), but some guys drink lots of it. It’s very popular in my shitamachi (“ghetto”), easier to find than sake.
I wanted to try it a little. Mmmm, that will do the job for the fruits. I am not a fan of it.

It’s good to make “chu-hi” cocktail like those they serve to girls like me, in izakaya restaurants. A little sochu, lots of ice, fruit juice. For the juice, I took a sudachi lemon. Added 2 cherries and a litchi, let the ice melt. Good “light” apero.