A good way of using melons that are not as tasty as they might be. We use the local Charentais melons (which are wonderful), but you could use any sweet melon (ideally with orange flesh, because it looks nice).
2 oranges
2 medium melons
1 glass grenadine syrup
100 ml sugar
500 g strawberries
sugar
2 tbsp chopped mint
mint leaves
juice of 1 1/2 lemons
Remove the zest of the oranges with a zester (if you haven’t got one you’ll have to remove the zest with a vegetable peeler, then cut it into the thinnest possible strips). Cook for 15 minutes in a syrup made from the grenadine and a glass of boiling water. Leave to cool, then drain (nb a peculiarity of this recipe is that you have no further use for the grenadine syrup. You could use it for another fruit salad).
Heat the sugar with 100 ml of water until dissolved, then bring to the boil. Add the chopped mint leaves, cover, and leave aside to macerate. When cold, strain the syrup, pressing the mint leaves to extract the flavour. Add the juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange, and put in the fridge to chill.
Wash and hull the strawberries, sprinkle with a little sugar and the juice of half a lemon, and leave aside in the fridge.
Cut the flesh of the melons into neat cubes (if you want to be really fancy, you could use a melon baller, but you end up with a lot of wasted bits of melon) and put in a serving bowl in the fridge.
To serve, add the strawberries to the melons, pour over the orange and mint syrup, and decorate with the orange zest and a few mint leaves. It should be chilled, but not too cold.