Grilled mango and pecan salad with fetta, avocado and sweet chilli-raspberry dressing

I have the best ideas when I am stuck with a few odd ingredients in the kitchen. In this case it was mango, fetta and avocado. I knew I had to use all three in the same dish… but what to do?! Then I remembered the Cuttaway Creek raspberry wine vinegar I had purchased on a girls’ weekend away in the Southern Highlands some months ago. What a perfect accompaniment to mango! I wanted to bring out the flavour of the mango so I grilled it and threw in a few pecan nuts for protein. The smell of mango and pecans frying together is divine; I suggest you put your schnoz right in there while it is cooking! Sweet chilli sauce adds a hint of chilli to the dressing and the sweetness of the mango and raspberry vinegar are perfectly complemented by bitter radicchio and rocket leaves and the saltiness of fetta. Add some creamy avocado and fragrant basil… and you have my new favourite salad!

Serves 2

Salad
1 mango, cut into large slices
1 handful of pecans
1 Tbsp olive oil

2 handfuls young radicchio leaves, or centre leaves of large radicchio
2 handfuls of young minuette lettuce leaves, or other green lettuce such as endive
2 handfuls of rocket leaves
1 avocado, halved then sliced
1 handful of basil leaves, sliced thinly
100g fetta cheese, crumbled

Dressing
1/8 cup raspberry wine vinegar*
1/8 cup sweet chilli sauce

Method
Arrange radicchio, minuette lettuce and rocket leaves on serving plates. Top with avocado, basil and crumbled fetta. Heat olive oil in a grill pan and fry mango slices until golden on all sides. Add pecans and grill for a few extra minutes. Arrange grilled mango slices and pecans on top of salad. Mix together raspberry wine vinegar and sweet chilli sauce and drizzle over salad. Enjoy!

* Cuttaway Creek raspberry wine vinegar is from the Southern Highlands, NSW Australia. It is so sweet and tasty you could almost drink it on its own!