Summer Fruit Salads - Cooks Illustrated

Published July 1, 2001.

Good fruit salads shouldn't taste like sugary desserts. We found that sweet-tart dressings brighten flavors rather than cloaking them.

The Problem

Good fruit salads are the essence of simple summer eating. But the standard choices of yogurt or sugar syrup dressings render them either muddied or sugary sweet.

The Goal

We wanted a simple dressing that would enhance the bright flavors and jewel-like colors of the fruit, making a good fruit salad truly great.

The Solution

Dress the fruit with a gastrique, a sauce made by means of a quick acid-sugar reduction, to create complex layers of flavor along with dazzling color and sheen.

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