Roedjak manis (Javanese fruit salad)

For ➍
2 tbs lime juice
100 g peanuts
3 tbs brown sugar or palm sugar
1 tbs tamarind (paste)
1 small chilli, cut in tiny pieces*
1 mango, chopped
1 green papaya, chopped or apple
1 pineapple, chopped
½ or 1 small cucumber, sliced or chopped

Roast the peanuts in a dry frying pan. Finely chop them.
In a bowl, mix the tamarind with the sugar, shrimp paste and lime juice. Stir in half of the peanuts. Add the finely chopped chilli pepper*.
Mix the selected fruit. Coat the fruit with the dressing*.
Serve chilled as a dessert or as a side_dish for Indonesian food.

*Or sprinkle the chilli over your salad.

Papaya & halloumi watercress salad

For ➍
salad:
200-250 g halloumi, sliced
1 ts ghee*
1 medium punnet of cherry or baby plum tomatoes, halved
4 huge handfuls of watercress
1 medium red onion, finely sliced
1 medium ripe papaya or half a large one
1 large ripe black skin avocado, flesh scooped out & sliced
1 handful of pine nuts, or substitute pumpkin/sunflower seeds
dressing:
extra virgin olive oil
raw apple cider vinegar or lime or lemon juice
sea salt & black pepper
a squeeze of raw runny honey

Take a large flat serving dish and distribute the watercress (you can roughly snip into the stems a little for slightly more elegant eating).
Scatter the tomatoes, onion and avocado over the bed of watercress and sprinkle on a touch of sea salt if desired.
Gently toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan and set aside.
Halve the papaya and scoop out the seeds.
Using a flattish spoon, scoop out thick slivers of the papaya flesh and pile onto the salad. If you're struggling to make it look nice then try slicing or cubing the fruit.
Ask everyone to be seated as this salad is best consumed when the halloumi is hot from the griddle/pan.
Heat the ghee to a high temperature in a large frying pan and lay down the halloumi slices without overcrowding (you might have to do this in batches if your pan is too small).
Fry the halloumi for approximately a minute on each side until each piece takes on a golden brown colour.*
Lay them across the salad.
At the table, sprinkle over the pine nuts, drizzle over a generous amount of olive oil, a squeeze of honey, a splash of vinegar and a good grinding of black pepper.

*or you could grill/griddle the halloumi.

Som tam (Thai green papaya salad)

For ➍
200 g green (unripe) papaya, peeled & grated into thin strips
2 cloves of garlic
2 to 5 small chili peppers
2 Thai eggplant into slices
2 tbs dried shrimp
3 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs lime juice
1 tsp palm sugar
4 cherry tomatoes, halved
3 tbs peanuts, unsalted, roasted

Mash the garlic, chillies and long beans and Thai eggplant in a mortar. Add the grated papaya, and stamp it with the other ingredients.
Add the dried shrimp, fish sauce, lime juice and sugar and stir well to the sugar has melted.
Add tomato and stir again to. Add the roasted peanuts.