May 12, 2010

Elegant Fruit Salad

"For-a-Crowd" Recipes, coconut, fruit, grapes, no-cook, oranges, Salad, strawberries

Presented by

43 ratings

Prep time: 34 minutes
chilling time 1 hour
Servings: 8
Partner: Ham Spread on Mini Rolls

Grandma always put this salad in a glass serving bowl to accentuate its gorgeous shapes and colors.

Ingredients

1 medium coconut
3 medium oranges
1 pound seedless green grapes
1 pint strawberries
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

Directions

1

For the salad, bore holes in coconut and drain milk into a bowl, reserving 2 tablespoons. Chill coconut milk until ready to use. Open the coconut completely. Remove pulp with a sharp knife. Shred enough pulp to yield about 11/2 cups. Chill remaining milk and pulp for another use.
2

Grate oranges to yield 2 teaspoons zest. Reserve orange zest. Peel oranges and cut into bite-size pieces.
3

Remove grapes from stems. Remove stems from strawberries. Slice the strawberries.
4

Combine shredded coconut, oranges, grapes and strawberries in a salad bowl and mix well.
5

For the dressing, combine the sour cream, brown sugar, reserved coconut milk and reserved orange zest in a small bowl and mix well.
6

Pour the dressing over the salad. Toss to mix well. Chill, covered, for 1 hour. Serve cold.

Grandma's Secret Trick

The liquid in a coconut is delicious and nutritious. To get it out easily, Grandma hammered a nail into each of the coconut's three "eyes," then inverted the coconut over a bowl. Fresh coconuts have a lot of liquid in them. Grandma would shake a coconut to find out how fresh it was. If she heard plenty of liquid sloshing in it, she knew it was fresh. She also knew to use the liquid within 24 hours.