Persimmon salad

Hanoi, my city, is experiencing the best time of autumn now. Persimmon is also a sign of Hanoi’s autumn, along with green sticky rice – as I mentioned in the previous posts, big chrysanthemum, and the smell of "milk flower" trees (hoa sua) filled up the streets at night. 

Persimmons are in season now. There are many different kinds of persimmons, some are crunchy, some are tender and juicy. Some are green, some are greeny yellow, some are red. Some are really big, some are so tiny. For me, what I like the best is the green tiny crunchy ones, however, nowadays they are getting more scarce when the big kinds become more popular. 

I thought what if I use the persimmons to make into some dishes as I’ve never eaten such a food. After searching on the Internet and I found that persimmons certainly can be made into good foods. So I imagined how to combine some ingredients including persimmon to make a simple salad. Finally, I came up with this salad. I told my mom what I was gonna do, and she suggested that I use green apple in the salad to balance the taste and add good flavor to the salad. Thanks for that, the salad I created this time was really perfect. It made me surprised for the first time I tried to come up with a totally new dish. 

These persimmons I used were crunchy and gently sweet, though they are not the ones I like most. 

Ingredients (serves 4-5)

- 3 crunchy persimmons 

- 1 green apple

- 1 sweet corn cob 

- 5 salted young cucumbers 

- 1 small bunch of cilantro 

- 1 small bunch of mint 

- ¼ tsp salt 

- ¼ tsp ground pepper 

- mayonnaise, as needed 

- 100g lettuce 

Method:

- Peel the persimmons and apple, then dice. 

- Remove the corn kernels from the cob and cook them until done. Drain and let cool.

- Dice the young cucumbers. 

- Finely chop the cilantro and mint. 

- Put together the persimmons, apple, corn, cucumber in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. 

- Add the chopped cilantro, mint and an adequate amount of mayonnaise to the above mixture and toss to combine.

- Chill the salad in the fridge before serving time. The salad tastes better when it is cool. Serve with lettuce.