Watermelon Rind

Recently, my friend and I went to the farmer's market and bought a watermelon for $5. It was at least 17 inches long and 12 inches in diameter. Instead of the stereotypical striped dark and pale lines, it had pale green and paler green stripes. When we cut it open, it was YELLOW on the inside.

My friend and I split it up one day. I did all the knife work with my asian meat cleaver from the chinese store back in undergrad. Growing up, my family only owned two knives: a giant meat cleaver for chopping EVERYTHING and a small paring knife for peeling fruits. I've come to realize there are other knives: bread knives, chef's knives, steak knives, butter knives; but I still have a fondness for the giant meat cleaver that's so good for cutting everything.

Anyway, I digress (as usual). Staring at the leftover watermelon rind, I realized how much we waste. In the back of my mind, I vaguely remember my mom using it to make soup (well, the white part) and I also remember people saying it's good pickled. Since pickling was out of the question (I did not want to risk contaminating my precious pickle jar), I decided to boil the rind and make a chilled watermelon rind dish.



Into a stockpot filled with salted boiling water the chopped up pieces went. They were strained out once the water was reboiling and they looked cooked. I then chilled it overnight in my fridge and took out a portion to flavor as needed.

You can see the preflavored cooked rind here:

And after flavoring, it took on the darker coloring of soy sauce and chinese vinegar:

The recipe goes like this:

Take watermelon rind and cut out the white pieces. Cut them into chunky strips. Throw into salted boiling water (you want 2:1 water : rind ratio; also don't over salt since you will be adding soy sauce). Strain when water reboils (~5 -8 min) and chill overnight.

Add soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, chili oil*, and oil infused with sichuan prickly peppercorn** to taste. Allow to marinate for a few hours. Serve and eat (or you can be like me and eat it out of a mason jar).

I actually do recommend this process. It's rather tasty and fairly healthy.

<3
Hao
 
*optional: if you want some heat; I use a paprika, cayenne, and sesame based chili oil recipe from my mom. I'll post how to make it when I make my next batch
**optional: i'll take pictures when i make it again, good fresh peppercorns can be hard to find sometimes