Sunny Fruit kebabs, with a Mascarpone Vanilla dipping sauce..

At a family event recently, we wanted to offer something light, both savoury and sweet, to our 30 or so guests. My daughter made these fruits kebabs for me, and I suggested the dipping sauce, so it was a real team effort. They looked amazing, and disappeared really quickly, so I’d like to recommend these for your next party or barbeque!

Once the fruit was cut up, it was just a matter of threading them onto the bamboo skewers, and arranging them on a suitable platter. We made about 25 skewers, as we had another sweet dish on offer, but of course you can make as many as you like!

INGREDIENTS:

For the Fruit Kebabs:

• 1 Ogden Melon – halved, deseeded and cut into similar-sized chunks
• 1 Honeydew melon – as above 
• red grapes – washed and drained
• Green grapes – washed and drained
• Fresh Pineapple –  skin removed, in chunks
• 1 punnet of smallish Strawberries – washed, dried and hulled

For the Mascarpone and Vanilla dipping sauce:

• A 250g tub of mascarpone cheese
• About 50mls of Whipping cream
• 2-3 dessertspoons of Caster sugar
• A teaspoon of Vanilla paste or essence (the Vanilla paste has the vanilla seeds in it which look lovely)

EQUIPMENT:

• A sharp knife
• a packet of Bamboo skewers
• a suitable serving platter – see NOTES
• A clean cotton tea towel – wet with cold water, then squeezed out
• A bowl for the Dipping Sauce.

METHOD:

• Wash or cut up all the fruit before you start. This will give you an idea of how many kebabs you’re going to make. See NOTES.
• Decide which order you’d like to thread the fruit onto the skewers – we started with the two different-coloured  melons, then a strawberry, some pineapple, a green grape, finishing with a red grape. I’ll leave it up to you to pick your own variation.
• Make up each kebab, following the list you’ve decided upon, and place each one onto the serving dish as you make it.
• Once you have a few kebabs on the dish, start to cover it with the damp tea towel between each addition. This will prevent the fruit from drying out. Keep the entire plate fully covered until just before serving.

Mascarpone Dipping Sauce: (or an alternative – see NOTES below)

• Put all the ingredients into a bowl and beat together until fully combined
•  If you think the dipping sauce is too stiff, add more whipping cream until you get the required consistency.
• Transfer to a pretty bowl for serving. Cover with cling film and refrigerate until ready to serve.

NOTES:

• The fruit we used were just what was ripe in the supermarket – I’d love to have added some mango, papaya, and so on, but they were all very under-ripe. The strawberries need to be slightly under ripe if possible.
• It might help you to count say, 25 grapes, into a bowl. Then put out a separate bowl for each fruit, putting 25 items into each one – that way you’ll be able to run off 25 kebabs really quickly. We only used half the melons and half the Pineapples for the amount you see in the pictures here.
• You can use virtually any fruit that won’t go brown while it’s waiting to be eaten; so apples, bananas or pears may not be suitable.  If you really want to use bananas, etc.  you could toss them in lemon juice before threading them on, but I’m not sure how they’d fare. *please let me know if you try it though!*
• Very soft fruits such as raspberries probably won’t work either.
• If you really want to push the boat out, you could add a few marshmallows to your kebabs, and a drizzle of chocolate – the sky’s the limit!
• The damp tea towel works like a dream – we prepared our kebabs shortly after lunchtime, kept them covered all afternoon, and they were perfect for the reception at 6.30pm. If the day is very warm, I’d suggest refreshing the tea towel in cold water halfway through the waiting time.
• As an alternative to the Mascarpone dipping Sauce, you could always use a Strawberry or other fruit Coulis  https://eatingforireland.com/recipe/strawberry-coulis/– this will keep down the fat content and calorie count for sure.