Fruits are lightly coated with a sugar syrup, packed in a melon bowl and chilled in this fun Chinese dessert recipe. Feel free to vary the fruits according to what is in season. You can also replace the sugar, lemon and ginger mixture with the rock sugar syrup in Chinese Chilled Melon Fruit Salad if desired.

Serves 4 to 6.
Ingredients:

Syrup:
1 cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 slice ginger, peeled
6 tablespoons sugar
Other:
1 large honeydew melon
8 fresh or canned longans or lychees
1 cup mango slices
3 to 4 large strawberries
Preparation:

Combine all the ingredients for the syrup and bring to a boil. Cool and set aside while preparing the fruit.

Cut about 1 inch off the top of the melon. Remove the seeds and scoop out the honeydew fruit inside (a melon baller makes this easy). Reserve the fruit. Wash and hull the strawberries and cut in half. If using fresh longans or lychees, peel and remove the stone in the middle. If using fresh mango, peel and slice.

Carefully pack the melon with the fruit, beginning with the honeydew. There are no hard and fast rules on how much honeydew fruit to use. It will depend partly on how much room you have, based on how thoroughly you cleaned out the melon. Also, it depends on how much other fruit you want to add. For this recipe I used 2 cups of honeydew, but it’s one of my favorite fruits. Feel free to adjust the ratio of honeydew to other fruit as desired.

Add the mango, followed by the longan or lychees and strawberries. Chill the melon in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Serve in crushed ice (the ice supports the melon and helps it stand up). Enjoy!