Apple-Blueberry-Salad

© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010

Now during the dog days I don't like to cook. For these hot summer days a fruit salad is the best. And with blueberries in season now here in Germany I made an apple blueberry salad. There is a bit of cooking though, because the apple slices have to be seared in the pan with walnuts for a few minutes to caramelize them.


Apple-Blueberry-Salad
(up to 4 servings)

500 g blueberries
2 apples (cut in slices)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3 tablespoons walnuts (cut in pieces as you like them)
3 tablespoons sugar
mint leaves

Marinade for the blueberries:
1 tablespoons honey
juice of a lime

Cream-Cheese jogurt:
3 tablespoons honey
90 g Cream Cheese (I use Philadelphia)
3 or more tablespoons jogurt
lime juice to taste

To make in advance: Marinade the blueberries in a mixture of honey and lime juice. Keep in the fridge for about 30 minutes or longer. So the blueberries will be cool when serving later for the salad.

To make the salad: on medium high heat melt the butter, add apple slices and walnuts and sear them until the apple slice get soft. Add sugar and caramelize apples and walnuts. Remove from heat and arrange the apple slices and walnuts on plate. Top the mixture with the blueberries and if you like add some of the marinade too. Sprinkle with small mint leaves (or with chopped mint leaves).

Mix the ingredients for the cream cheese jogurt. If you like it smoother add more than 3 tablespoons jogurt. Add some lime juice to taste.

Serve the apple-blueberry-salda with thre jogurt on the side. Enjoy!



© All rights reserved, Thorsten Kraska, 2010



About the Photos
At first you may find that both photos are not that different, but they are from a technical point of view. The 1st one was made with a 70mm macro lens at f=2.8 and the 2nd one with a 50mm at f=1.7
I often get the question which lens I use for food photography. And there is only one answer: the one which I could get the result with I have in mind.
For the first one I chose a longer focal lens to get a narrow angular field (perspective). With longer focal length the persepctive difference between front and back is narrow. This gives a good balance of front and back and the long focal length is avoiding distortions with this kind of angles.
In the 2nd I used the 50mm lens which has (compared to the 70mm) a wider angular field. Things in the back seems to be smaller as compared to thos in the very front. In a leveld angle photo this can add some dynamic to the composition. In the angle I used here in combination with the ascending diagonal line one could get the impression the fruit has a motion towards the front.