Melón con Pesto
Melón con jamón is a traditional Spanish dish, pairing the rich, salty Jamón Iberico (a cured ham originating from Iberia), with pieces of fresh, sweet melon.Problem is, I went vegan a years back, and so this dish was absolutely off-limits! Fortunately after a romantic meal in Sevilla, we were inspired to make our own version of this traditional recipe. By replacing the jamón with basil pesto, you get a herbaceous twist on an old classic, and in our opinion, its even better than the original 😉
Ingredients
Melon
- 1/2 a Large Melon cut into large pieces
Pesto
- 2 cups Basil leaves
- 1/2 cup Pine nuts
- 1/2 cup Olive oil
- 1/2 Lemon juiced
- 3 tbsp Nutritional yeast or more to taste
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Garnish
- A handful of Rocket
- Dried Cranberries
- Walnuts chopped roughly
Instructions
Pesto
- Gently toast the pine nuts until slightly golden.
- Add all of the pesto ingredients to a blender, and blend until smooth.
- Taste for seasoning, adding more salt, lemon, nutritional yeast or oil where necessary.
Assembly
- Spread some of the pesto on to the plate in lines, this helps the melon stay put on the plate.
- Loosely toss some rocket around the plate.
- Place melon slices on the lines of pesto.
- Top the melon slices with drops of pesto, sprinkle them with cranberries and walnuts, and more rocket if desired!
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