Melon and Cucumber Salad with Vanilla Dream

Vanilla dream

1. Scrape out the pulp from the vanilla pod. Put 400 ml milk with crème fraiche, the pinch of salt, the sugar, the vanilla pod and the vanilla pulp in a saucepan and bring to the boil briefly. Take the saucepan off the hob and let the mixture steep for 20 minutes. Remove the vanilla pod. Mix the rest of the milk with the egg yolks. Soak gelatine in water and add to milk. Mix everything well and add the warm vanilla milk while stirring. Slowly bring to the boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the cream starts to bubble. Immediately strain through a fine sieve into a bowl. Line the rectangular shape with cling film and pour in the warm vanilla cream. Smooth the surface, sprinkle with powdered sugar and refrigerate for at least 5 hours.

salad

1. Caramelize the sugar in a saucepan and deglaze with white wine. Reduce to half over medium heat. Pour in the grenadine syrup and lemon juice and allow to cool. Core the cantaloupe melon and cut the flesh off the skin of both melons. Cut the pulp into approx. 1 cm cubes. Halve the cucumber lengthways, scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon and cut the cucumber into small cubes. Add the melon and cucumber to the syrup and mix well. Let it steep for about 20 minutes or more.

Serving

1. Use the cling film to turn the vanilla cream out of the mold. Remove the foil and cut the vanilla cream into 5 equal pieces. Arrange on small plates with the melon and cucumber salad. Garnish with lemon balm leaves and powdered sugar.