Prosciutto & Melon
Orange melon wedges with pink ribbons of prosciutto draped over them, a shine of olive oil, a few flakes of salt, and torn mint is the first course at every restaurant on the Italian coast, and it is also the first course a person makes when they cannot cook and know it. Two ingredients do all the work. Your entire job is to buy a ripe melon and not lay the prosciutto flat.
- Cost for two
- $20
- Active time
- 10 min
- Done ahead
- 81%
- 1 hr 50 min before 7:30
- Hands off at
- 7:20
- T-10
Allergens: None of the top 9·Serves: 2
Gear: A knife, a big spoon, a cutting board, one long platter or a wide dinner plate, plastic wrap or a plate to cover it. No heat, no thermometer, no timer.
Start at 5:30. Hands off from 7:20. Stove mode follows the clock while you cook.
The 7:30 Timeline
Read it bottom-up if you like; cook it top-down.
Done before she arrives
Aisle order
Shopping list
Produce
Cantaloupe, ripe
see the ripeness check below; buy it Thursday if you can. October–March: 2 ripe Bartlett pears instead, or fresh figs in September.
1
Fresh mint
1 clamshell
Lemon
1
Meat & Seafood
Sliced prosciutto
3 oz, deli case or the packaged-meats wall; 8–10 slices
1 package
Pantry & Canned
Flaky salt
Maldon, spice aisle. Fallback: a pinch of kosher salt.
Olive oil: the best bottle you own
If your only bottle is the one you fry eggs in, buy a small bottle of something labeled "extra virgin" and use it for this and for the drizzle on every other plate in this library.
Pantry (you probably have these)
Salt, pepper, olive oil
but on this plate the salt and the oil are half the dish; use the good ones.
At the stove
Method
- 1
Hold the melon up to your face at the end where the stem was. Smell it. Ripe smells sweet and like melon; unripe smells like nothing. Press that spot with your thumb; it should give slightly.
- 2
Set the melon on the board and cut it in half from the stem end to the bottom. It will roll; hold it with your other hand and cut slowly.
- 3
Scrape out the seeds and the stringy center with a big spoon. Throw them away.
- 4
Set each half cut-side-down and cut it into 4 long wedges.
- 5
Stand a wedge on its end and run the knife down along the curve between the orange flesh and the rind. Follow the curve roughly; you will leave some orange on the rind, and that is fine. Repeat for all 8.
- 6
Put the wedges on a plate, cover, and refrigerate.
- 7
Pick 12 of the best mint leaves off the stems onto a saucer and lay a damp paper towel over them. Put the rest of the mint in a glass of water in the fridge, like flowers, for the spritz.
- 8
Cut the lemon in half.
- 9
At 7:15, lay the wedges on the platter in a loose row, each overlapping the last a little.
- 10
Open the prosciutto. Peel one slice off the paper slowly with both hands; it tears easily, and torn is fine. Tear it in half.
- 11
Drop each half loosely over a wedge so it lands in a ruffle with air in it. Do not smooth it down. Flat prosciutto looks like lunch meat; ruffled prosciutto looks like Italy.
- 12
Cover the platter and refrigerate.
- 13
At 7:40, take it out and let it sit on the counter.
- 14
At 7:45, drizzle olive oil over everything in a thin stream, squeeze the lemon half over it, pinch flaky salt over the melon, and tear the mint leaves over the top with your fingers.
- 15
Carry it out. That was the whole thing.
Is it done?
The check that needs no experience
Thermometer: nothing here is cooked. Prosciutto is cured and eaten straight from the package. No thermometer: the melon is ready when it smells sweet at the stem end and the flesh is deep orange and juicy on the board, not pale and dry. The prosciutto should be pink with white fat, pliable, and smell mild; if it smells sour or looks grey, it is old — the package date will tell you.
The #1 way to screw it up
The melon is unripe: hard, pale orange, tastes like cucumber. You find this out at 6:00, with the knife in your hand.
Recovery
You have 90 minutes and a supermarket. If you cannot go back, cut the wedges into smaller chunks, squeeze the whole lemon over them, use twice the salt and a heavier drizzle of oil, and add a thread of honey if you have any; salt and acid make bland fruit taste like something. The prosciutto carries the plate either way. Next time, buy the melon Thursday and let it sit on the counter until Friday.
- The prosciutto came off the paper as one shredded mess
- tear it all into ribbons and scatter them over the melon. Ribbons look intentional; it is a plating style.
- The mint went black and limp in the fridge
- skip it. Black pepper over the melon instead, which is also a real thing people do.
The reveal
Plating
Lay the melon wedges in one loose overlapping row down the length of a long platter or across a wide dinner plate, leaving the rim bare. Drape the torn prosciutto over them in ruffles so orange shows between the pink, and drizzle oil and squeeze lemon over the whole row from a foot up. Pinch flaky salt over the melon, tear the mint over everything last, and set the platter between you both rather than making two plates.
Vegetarian swap
Melon with salty cheese instead of salty meat: shave thin ribbons off a block of ricotta salata or feta with a vegetable peeler and lay them over the wedges in the same loose way, same oil, lemon, salt, and mint, plus a pinch of red pepper flakes if you have them. Same timeline, same platter. It is a real dish on real menus, not a consolation.
What to pour
- Wine
- Prosecco, cold — La Marca, about $15; it is the 7:30 Spritz base, so the bottle is already open.
- Beer
- Peroni or any cold pale lager.
- No alcohol
- The 7:29 (the zero-proof spritz), or sparkling water with a lemon wedge and a mint sprig.
Take this to the supermarket.
The First Bulletproof Dinner as a PDF, with the timelines. Free.