A huge, striped, inside bright scarlet, watermelon, oddly enough, is a berry. He, like melon, belongs to the pumpkin family. His closest relatives are cucumber and pumpkin.
A bit of history
The watermelon leads its pedigree from wild ancestors from tropical Africa, where in the deserts and semi-deserts you can still see uncultivated thickets of this plant. Even in Ancient Egypt, almost four thousand years ago, watermelon was already eaten, and it was introduced into the territory of Russia in the tenth century from India through trade routes. The giant berry took root in the Volga region, and in the central regions in the seventeenth century.
What can be made from watermelon?
It turns out that you can sculpt quite a lot of dishes from it. First of all, flesh is valued in a watermelon. It is eaten fresh, salted, pickled . It is also an excellent base for making smoothies and cocktails, salads and snacks. Delicious candied fruits and jam are prepared from the crust of the plant. If you seriously think about what can be cooked from watermelon, treat guests to a delicious salad.
"Cheese" watermelon
Ingredients: watermelon pulp, peeled - 300 grams, feta cheese - 100 grams, olive oil - one large spoon, basil - two to three branches, balsamic vinegar - one small spoon.
Take a small and ripe (not overripe) watermelon. Cut the flesh, remove the seeds. Cut the pulp into cubes of 1x1 centimeter size. Cut the cheese into about the same cubes. Grind the basil and add it to the container with the rest of the ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix balsamic vinegar and olive oil. We pour our salad with the mixture, carefully (so that the cubes remain intact), mix and set aside in the refrigerator for half an hour. This is one of the recipes that can be made from watermelon - an original and delicious cheese salad. In the absence of components, feta can be replaced with feta cheese, and olive oil can be replaced with simple sunflower, but then the taste will be slightly different.
“Wine” watermelon (sweet dessert)
Ingredients: average berry for 4-5 kilograms, puff pastry ready - half a kilo, two thirds of a glass of sugar, a little vanilla powder, a glass of cream, ground walnuts for decoration, juice of one lemon, gelatin - 40 grams, white dry wine - a glass.
We roll half the dough according to the size of the baking dish available. The second part is cut into small squares and stacked in the shape of triangles. Bake in the oven until golden brown. Mix gelatin with warm water, dissolve, gradually pour the wine and juice of one lemon, cook for about five minutes, stirring constantly. Cool down. On a baked cake, put the watermelon, peeled and peeled (cut into pieces). Pour it with a mixture of wine and gelatin, put it in the refrigerator for solidification. Then put for dessert cream whipped with sugar, test triangles, sprinkle with powder, decorate with walnuts and grated lemon peel. This is another option that can be made from watermelon. The cake recipe is quite laborious, but the dish is original and very tasty.
Peel jam
What can be prepared from watermelon for the winter? The best preservation is berry peel jam. To do this, the peels remaining from eating numerous watermelons should be peeled from the topmost peel - green. And cut the white part into cubes or strips. Then you need to fill them with hot water and cook for half an hour in sugar syrup, prepared in advance. Set the jam aside for an hour or two. Repeat the operation several times. As a result, watermelon peels become transparent. Then the jam is done. To prepare it, you need: one part of the crusts, one part of water, one and a half parts of sugar, lemon (add to the syrup).
After cooking, roll the jam in sterilized half-liter or liter jars, like any other. Store in a cool dark place. In winter, this jam is good to use with tea, infused with herbs, so that the aroma of hot summer is fully revealed in the fierce February frost.
Soaked in a barrel
What can be prepared from watermelon for the winter? If you have an idle oak (or, at worst, plastic) barrel idle, you can try to cook a salty product. However, first of all, worry about storage. Because so many salted watermelons are hard to eat right away. Well, this pickle is stored in the basement of a private house at a fairly low temperature. The bottom of the refrigerator is also suitable if you have a large one. For the recipe you will need watermelons in large quantities (to fill a barrel with them), salt and water.
Wash small ripe berries and put them in a container, filling it in two-thirds. For ten liters of water we take almost a kilogram of salt. We make a pickle. Pour it into the barrel to cover the product. We stand two or three days. To speed up the process, watermelons are recommended to be pierced with a wooden sharp stick. Three days later, the soaked watermelon is ready. Now you need to hide it in a cellar or on a glacier for storage, or put it in the refrigerator, distributing it in suitable containers. This is another option that can be made from watermelon (with photo below) - pickle in a barrel. And then even in winter the product will delight you with its original taste and nourish the body with useful vitamins.
What can be prepared from watermelon with a blender?
Its pulp, purified from seeds, is traditionally used as the basis for the preparation of mixes and smoothies, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. If you have a blender, you just need to mix a pound of pulp with the same amount of juice (for example, cherry or orange), add spices, grated chocolate, nuts - a little bit of everything.
You can - ice cream sundae. If the cocktail is planned to be alcoholic, pour in 50 grams of cognac. In general, do not be afraid to experiment. Bon appetit to all!