Just Picked: Canary melon

It’s difficult to miss the eye-catching, canary-colored melon.

The cheerful rind sets it apart from other melons: smooth and pale honeydews, rough and beige cantaloupes, highly recognizable watermelons with their signature green markings.

Of course, those are all more common.

I’m not quite sure I had come across a canary melon until a recent trip to the Night Market at Kendall Yards, where I spotted a bin of the brightly colored beauties for $3 each at the Elithorp Farm stand and asked about what they were like on the inside.

Cut through the yellow skin of a canary melon, and the flesh is ivory, like that of a pear.

“Tastes like a cantaloupe,” the farmer told me.

“I’ll take one,” I said.

I went for a rounder melon. After a couple of days on the counter top, the skin took on a slightly corrugated texture.

Canary melons are known not only for their sunny appearance but long post-harvest shelf-life. I didn’t really put that to the test, though. My canary melon brightened up my kitchen just long enough for me to make a prosciutto run.

The classic combination of melon and prosciutto is one of my favorites, linked forever to the sun-soaked memory of enjoying the dish more than 10 years ago at an outdoor café in Sorrento on Italy’s Amalfi coast. There, the salad had just two ingredients: cantaloupe and cured ham. It was plain and simple, sweet and salty, a perfect light appetizer to end a day spent diving off of rocks into the Bay of Naples.

In the years since, I’ve made other versions – dressing the dish with a balsamic reduction, mint or chiffonated basil leaves, freshly cracked pepper, a squeeze of lime or lemon. I’ve added cheese – gorgonzola, cambozola, mini balls of fresh mozzarella – and made a full meal of it by using arugula, figs, pistachios or pine nuts, roasted bell peppers, and nectarines or peaches.

I’ve used a variety of melons, too: Charentais, honeydew, galia and snow leopard, which – like a canary melon – has a snowy interior.

But the pocket that holds seeds in the middle of a canary melon is a pretty peach color, reminiscent of cantaloupe. The flavor is too, but it’s milder – gently sweet with a slight musk and hint of pineapple.

Look for fruit that’s firm, with no soft spots nor blemishes. Use it the way you would other melons: on a fruit tray, in a salad, drizzled with honey, pureed in a smoothie or gazpacho, granita, sorbet or ice pop.

I enjoyed mine with fresh herbs and freshly cracked pepper, still another variation on that classic melon-and-prosciutto pairing.

Canary Melon with Prosciutto and Thyme

1 medium canary melon

4- or 5-ounces prosciutto

2 or 3 sprigs fresh thyme, or more to taste

Freshly cracked pepper

Cut melon in half, and scoop out and discard the seeds. Cut each half into 8 to 10 slices. Cut off rind from each slice.

Cut each slice of prosciutto in half, and wrap each half around the middle of each slice of melon.

Arrange on a platter. Sprinkle with fresh thyme leaves and freshly cracked pepper, and serve.