I ate this delicious dish at the Country Road High Summer launch. It was demo’d as a Dessert but I thought it would be suitable for an Amuse Bouche for my culturally appropriated Christmas Dinner. It has 3 of the 5 tastes (Sweet, Sour and Salty) which was the perfect way to get everybody’s mouths watering for the starter that followed.

Pineapple Carpaccio:

Ingredients:

• 1 x Pineapple
• Mint (3-4 leaves)
• Sugar (approx 1 tsp depending how sweet your pineapple is)
• Any Salt except iodised table salt (1/4 tsp)
• Lemon or lime zest (1/2 should be fine)
• 1 x red chilli

Method:

1. Clean the pineapple, make sure you get all the eyes out.
2. As carefully as you can, cut the pineapple into paper thin slices. Lay them out on a plate, overlapping slightly.
3. In a pestle and mortar, grind together a few mint leaves, lemon zest , a little bit of sugar and salt. (This is to taste, be careful of using too much mint as it can be overpowering. The same goes for the salt).
4. Cut the red chilli in half and remove the seeds (they don’t look nice). Cut it into tiny pieces,  and mix it into your mint mixture.
5. Spread this mixture onto your pineapple. You can use a teaspoon or a brush works well too.
6. Lastly, chiffonade some mint and scatter over the pineapple.

Tips:

Lemon is sour and lime is bitter. You can use whichever you prefer.

The mint will start to go brown after a while if it’s left out at room temperature. It’s best to do those steps just before serving.

If you are making individual plates, arrange the pineapple on one side of the plate, leaving some negative space. This makes the dish look even more attractive.

I used Pink Himalayan salt.