Island Shrimp Salad

By: Michael Weller

Ingredients:
5 cups cold water
1 tsp. cracked black pepper
juice of 1 lime
7 coin-shaped slices of fresh ginger
#1 prawns (20-30 count) cleaned, peeled and deveined
3 cups assorted tropical fruits: kiwi, mango, papaya, guava, carambola, pineapple, banana, etc; about 1 of each
l avocado
2 T. chopped cilantro
1 T. chopped ginger
mixed baby lettuce greens
6 T. good, fruity extra virgin olive oil
3 T. rice wine vinegar
salt and pepper
toasted macadamia nuts

Procedure:
1. Put the water, pepper, ginger, lime juice (and heck, throw in what is left of the lime halves
while you’re at it), into a saucepan.
2. Add the shrimp.
3. Bring the water up to a simmer,
4. Cook 2 minutes, and the shrimp should be done.
5. Remove them from the water and cool while you do the rest of the work.
6. Clean and cut the tropical fruit into small pieces ( the size of a large kernel of corn is just about right).
7. Work over a bowl as much as possible, so you can save the juices.
8. Cut the avocado up as well.
9. Combine the fruit, avocado, cilantro and chopped ginger.
10. Put the baby greens on four plates.
11. Pack the fruit/avocado mix into a cylindrical mold of some sort: a cup measure, a pastry ring, or a 8 3/4 oz. canned vegetable can with both ends taken off. The can works really well, but be careful of the edges.
12. Using the mold, put a tower of fruit in the middle of each plate, and place a quarter of the shrimp on top.