My New Year’s resolution is to KISS a lot. I will KISS more at home, at work, anywhere that I can do it.  That is, to “Keep It Simple Sweetheart”. This extends to the appetizer that I am blogging about today, because I often put pressure on myself to come up with dishes that are unique, tasty and good for you. And sometimes ‘simple’ is best. Many years ago, I had a tasty chicken dish that my friend’s mom made for me and it was made only with chicken wings and oyster sauce. The chicken wings were placed in front of a window all day to dry out (this was before food safety was an issue, and hey, none of us got sick eating those wings) and then lightly fried in a hot wok with the oyster sauce barely coating them. They were super crispy and flavourful; I remembered that it was hard to stop eating them. Not only did the taste blow me away, but the fact that it was made with only two ingredients stuck with me.

Today’s recipe is barely even a recipe. It has only two ingredients in homage to my friend’s mom. This classic Italian dish can be served as an appetizer or as a dessert. But in my home, this is the perfect light meal when it is served with a salad.

Italians are brilliant in so many ways – they gave us Leonardo Da Vinci, stunning architecture, and Ferrari sports cars. Then there is their contribution to the culinary world, but I must say that my favourite Italian import is prosciutto crudo, which is raw cured ham. Parma and San Daniele are the best and come from the same region in Italy. A popular way to serve prosciutto is with ripe cantaloupe. For those of you who are Italian or have travelled to Italy, you will be familiar with this dish, but you may not know that cantaloupe is a superfood! It offers a high amount of vitamin A (great for eye health), vitamin C, vitamin B’s and also many minerals including calcium, iron and magnesium. It also has the antioxidant, zea –xanthin, which protects the body from UV rays. Prosciutto would not really be a superfood as it is high in sodium and fat so I wouldn’t recommend eating it on a regular basis, but it does have iron, zinc, vitamin B12 and of course protein.

My husband is of Chinese descent, but because he is good friends with Italians he has eaten a lot of authentic Italian food. When we were dating and before I was able to visit his place, I asked him what I might find in his kitchen. He said that the contents of his cupboards gave the impression that an Italian lived in his apartment.  This was a dish he made for me when we first met and I have loved it ever since. The saltiness of the prosciutto with the sweetness of the cantaloupe makes the perfect marriage.

Where does one get prosciutto?  We get it from an Italian deli and then they slice it for us at the counter, or I have seen the San Daniele packaged in the deli section of higher end supermarkets.

I am not even going to give you a recipe because it is so easy.  However, this is not a dish to make ahead of time as the salt from the prosciutto will draw the water out of the cantaloupe making it soggy. Therefore, serve this dish immediately once made.  You could do what I’ve done, take strips of prosciutto, fold them and then layer them with cubes of cantaloupe, or you could lay the prosciutto onto wedges of cantaloupe.

May this New Year bring more superfood adventures and lots of KISSing!!

Eat well and live great!  {Kake}