Temperatures are rising and more and more foods are craving that refresh, such as lettuce, cucumber, tomato, melon and watermelon. These fruits, for example, can be eaten whole or make up a rich summer salad. But is there a way to use the leftover shells? This may surprise more than one, but the truth is that it does. And what’s more, eating it has some advantages, such as increasing our fiber intake.
In the United States they even have a program to encourage citizens to consume this part of the fruit: the National Watermelon Promotion Board, which has launched the Use the whole Watermelon initiative. ). But how? This American organism proposes several uses, and they are quite original.
His first proposal is to prepare them in marinade. First you have to remove the hardest part (the green one), and keep the white part and part of the meat of the fruit, which we are going to chop into sticks. Then, we boil water and salt over medium high heat and add the shell pieces. You have to cook them until they are tender, about five minutes. Strain, reserve the liquid and leave the shells in a container.
Return the liquid to the pot and add sugar, vinegar, ginger, spices and celery seeds (quantities can be found here). We bring it to a boil and when the sugar dissolves, we cook over high heat for 15 minutes.
The next step is to pour the watermelon rinds into a deep plate, add the liquid and keep it in the fridge for a day. After the time, we put all the contents in a glass jar, we seal it and let it rest for two weeks in the refrigerator. From this body, they propose that we serve the pickle with sausage, cheese or pickled vegetables.
More ideas? Add the rinds to a gazpacho. We just have to crush them together with the onion and garlic until everything is very fine. Then, we add the watermelon, tomato, basil, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Mix again and grind until you get the desired texture.
They also invite us to fry the crusts as if they were French fries. To start, you have to heat sesame oil in a pan, add the watermelon rinds cut lengthwise and some carrots. Then constantly sauté for about two minutes. We can add other vegetables if we feel like it, and accompany the result with a homemade sauce of honey, soy sauce, garlic and ginger, here we leave the recipe.
If these uses do not convince you, remember that most fruit peels can be used to prepare smoothies, which come in handy for hydration when the thermometer rises.
