This salad celebrates some great summer fruits peach and watermelon. The sweet watermelon and the tart and sweet peach need some contrast in the salad. So I added crispy prosciutto and a hard, salty cheese ricotta salata. It is a variation of ricotta and it is dried and salted. For the vinaigrette I used the juice of a peach, added some lemon and lots of lemon basil. Lemon basil is a lovely, fragrant variation of the basils. If you don’t have it, use basil and mint.

I also added some interesting herbs and edible flowers in the salad, it is a great experience to come across a bite of different flavor while eating the salad. Feel free to experiment with whatever you have.

Ingredients

salad ingredients

• mixed salad leaves (young spinach, young kale and arugula works best)
• sliced peach
• watermelon cubes
• prosciutto pieces crispened in olive oil
• crumbled ricotta salata (you have to have it at room temp to be able to crumble it)
• sliced scallions or chopped red onion
• lemon basil leaves
• anise hyssop leaves
• borage flowers
• radish flowers

vinaigrette: 

• 1/2 chopped shallot
• juice of 1 peach
• lemon juice
• light olive oil – at least twice as much as the peach and lemon juice (extra virgin would have a very dominant taste)
• salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper to taste
• at least 1T of chopped lemon basil