Balsamic Dressing Melon & Prosciutto Ham Salad

 

 

When I saw this recipe on a Dunnes Stores leaflet I had to stop and read it. The picture was so pretty, it had a kind of ‘eat me now’ look about it. The other thing that grabbed my attention was that there was mint in it. I’m on the lookout for anything I can use mint in as it’s currently growing, no taking over my garden. The mint in my garden not only survived the winter it has actually thrived. I like mint anyway, it’s not just out of necessity that I want to use it. Mint is one of those things that evokes childhood memories for me, bitter sweet memories. Child hood memories are often much nicer as memories than they were when we were actually living them at the time, funny isn’t it? Mint was growing in the garden of my childhood home along the path that lead to the ‘roche laver’ (washing stone). The roche laver was a big stone in the garden that was used to wash clothes on, it was hard work, you would treat the clothes against the stone in a similar fashion to kneading dough. Believe me, I dreaded the walk down that path to the roche laver, there was always a big basket of dirty clothes waiting for me. My father worked with concrete, my mother in the tea field and my brother played a lot of football so as you can imagine, the clothes were usually pretty dirty. As I worked hard with my little hands washing against the stone I used to watch the mint leaves moving gently in the soft breeze. It was a welcome distraction. I treasure such memories, those little private moments. I love how there are little things in my life here in Ireland that can remind me of my childhood, my home, my beautiful island of Mauritius that I left behind.
I’m sure you’ll be looking to make delicious salads comes summer and I would recommend you give this Creamy, salty, fresh, sweet and juicy salad a try. You would more of it.