Canary Melon Salad 8″ x 8″ gouache and watercolor pencil, Sharyn Dimmick
Those of you who know me well know I am iffy about melons: I like watermelon and ripe honeydew, but I O.D’d on orange melons sometime after childhood. When I get a new melon, it is not necessarily a day of rejoicing. Wednesday’s CSA brought a rather large and spectacularly yellow Canary melon. I had never tasted one before. To make matters worse, my mother does not eat melons of any description, except for a token piece of watermelon on the hottest of days.
I got a sneak peek at the melon on Saturday morning at the Farmers’ Market because they were giving pieces away at the Riverdog Farm stand. It was very sweet, floral or perfumy, complex and not orange: it was a melon I could eat.
In the schizophrenic weather of Northern California October I am cooking posole in the morning for a hot lunch and wishing I had gone swimming by mid-afternoon. After thinking about it for six days I knew what I was going to do with the ripe melon: I would fix it Thai-style with chile paste and fresh lime juice and some fish sauce and eat it on a bed of arugula, also featured in the farm box.
As I sliced and seeded the melon, I tasted it again. It was really sweet. After I cubed each slice into a bowl, trying for bite-sized pieces, there was a lot of juice in the bottom.
I took another bowl, added a dollop of chile paste from my trusty jar, squeezed a lime into that and added a touch of fish sauce. I tasted the dressing. Pretty good. I combined the dressing with the melon and tasted it again. Hmm. Could it use more lime? Try again to be sure. At this point I was standing at the cutting board tasting rapidly. Yes, It could use more lime. I cut another and squeezed in half of it. “More,” the melon said, “More.”
I ended up using two limes’ worth of juice in the salad. And I tossed in two packets of honey-roasted peanuts leftover from my last Southwest Airlines flight. I ate every bit of this in my large salad bowl and drank all of the juice from the bowl and am happy to say that I have enough melon and arugula left to make another batch for lunch tomorrow (or the next time it turns hot).
Canary Melon Salad with Arugula, Lime and Chile Paste
Slice and seed 1 Canary melon. Cut it into bite-sized chunks.
Wash and dry enough arugula to give each eater a portion of salad.
Make a dressing of a dollop of chile paste (up to 1 Tbsp if you like heat. 1/4 tsp if you are wary of chilies), plus the juice of 2 limes and a splash of fish sauce. (It helps if you taste the dressing with a piece of melon and a leaf of arugula to know what you are getting).
Toss arugula with dressing and remove arugula to individual salad plates or bowls or a family-style platter. Pour remaining dressing over melon and toss. Pile melon on top of arugula. Garnish with whole or chopped peanuts to taste.
Food notes: I meant to garnish this with Thai basil and/or mint as well, but I never made it out to the yard to pick any. But if you have more discipline than I do by all means add either herb. I might like this with cooked shrimp or prawns, too, or even grilled beef, or coins of sausage.
Painting Note: I was uploading the painting and realized I forgot to paint the arugula. Oh well. Artistic license.
Next Week’s Treat: Next week “The Kale Chronicles” will feature a guest post by painter Suzanne Edminster who will share with you her recipe for poached pears with goat cheese.
thekalechronicles 
Sharyn, I don’t know that we ever have Canary melons here in America’s heartland. Would any other kind of melon work with the same ingredients? Just wondering.
Salad sounds delicious. Must have Donna Louise over for lunch and try it out if another kind of melon will work.
i’ve had Canary melons before! so good
Some other kind of melon would work, I think, if you like some other kind of melon, but I am no melon expert, not liking most of them. One guideline: the melon needs to be very sweet for this to work. If you make it with DL. please come back and let me know how it works out.
I don’t recall seeing canary melons around here but, then again, I haven’t really looked for them. I will now, though; they sound delicious, as does your salad. Yum!
Thanks, John. California has a long growing season, which is why I’m getting melon in mid-October.
I am right there with your mother when it comes to melons, but your dressing with the peanuts and arugula makes the melon sound much more interesting than what they do with the three basic melons around here (watermelon, cantalope, honeydew… cubed or balled; plain or tossed with pineapple, grapes, and strawberries; optional sweet yogurt dipping sauce, same old, same old.) You encourage us to try new things!
I would never put melon in fruit salad (ruins the fruit salad for me). We make fruit salad out of fresh pineapple, strawberries or raspberries, oranges and kiwi fruit, pomegranate seeds instead of berries in winter.
That salad sounds quite divine. and you are such a thoughtful cook waiting until you have your idea together.. i am a thoughtless cook, knife+eat.. This is why my kitchen is always a disaster and my writing space is my homey home.. I have arugula in the garden still and together with your other ingredients this sounds dazzling. thank you.
How wonderful to have garden arugula. I have some staple dishes that I make all the time, some inspirations (more of them than not coming from food blogs nowadays) and then I have problem ingredients that I have to think my way around, such as Canary melon and kale.
This sounds beautiful! I love melon but its so cold here it doesn’t seemquite the season for it.makes me want to visit California again 🙂
Hot. Cold. Hot. Cold. That’s our weather this October — sometimes it changes several times a day: makes it hard to plan meals!