The huge, striped, inside brightly scarlet, a water-melon, strangely enough, is a berry. He, like melon, belongs to the Pumpkin family. His closest relatives are a cucumber and a pumpkin.
Pedigree its watermelon leads from the wild ancestors oftropical Africa, where in the deserts and semi-deserts, and now you can meet the uncultivated thickets of this plant. Even in ancient Egypt, almost four thousand years ago, they already consumed a watermelon, and on the territory of Rus, it was imported around the tenth century from India along trade routes. Giant berry settled down in the Volga region, and in the seventeenth century - in the central regions.
Оказывается, из него можно изваять довольно много dishes. First of all, the pulp is prized in the watermelon. She is eaten fresh, salty, pickled. It is also an excellent base for making smoothies and cocktails, salads and snacks. From the crust of the plant prepare tasty candied fruits and jam. If you seriously think about the question of what can be cooked from a watermelon, treat the guests with a delicious salad.
Ingredients:pulp of watermelon, peeled - 300 grams, feta cheese - 100 grams, olive oil - one large spoon, basil - two or three sprigs, balsamic vinegar - one small spoon.
We take a small and ripe (not overripe) watermelon.Cut out the flesh, remove the bones. Flesh cut into cubes the size of 1x1 centimeter. Cheese cut into roughly the same cubes. Basil grind and add to the container with the rest of the ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the balsamic vinegar and olive oil. We pour our salad mixture, gently (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 cheese, and olive oil - simple sunflower, but the taste will then be slightly different.
Ingredients:medium 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 - glass.
Half the dough is rolled out according to the size of the mold forbaking, available. The second part is cut into small squares and added in the form of triangles. Bake in oven until golden brown. Gelatin is mixed with warm water, dissolved, gradually pouring wine and juice of one lemon, cook for about five minutes, stirring constantly. Cool it down. On the baked biscuit spread watermelon, peeled from the crust and seeds (cut into pieces). Fill it with a mixture of wine and gelatin, we put it in the refrigerator for freezing. Then lay out for a dessert whipped cream with sugar, test triangles, sprinkle powder, decorate with walnuts and grated lemon rind. This is another version of what can be prepared from watermelon. The recipe for the cake is quite laborious, but the dish turns out to be original and very tasty.
What can you make from watermelon for the winter?The best preservation is jam from berry berries. To do this, the rinds remaining from eating a lot of watermelons should be peeled from the uppermost peel - green. 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. Leave the jam for an hour or two. Repeat the operation several times. As a result, watermelon crusts become transparent. Then the jam is ready. To prepare it you need: one part of the crusts, one part water, one and a half parts of sugar, lemon (add to the syrup).
After preparation, the jam is rolled insterilized half-liter or liter jars, like any other. We store in a dark cool place. In the winter, it is good to use this jam with tea, infused on herbs, so that the aroma of hot summer will fully open in the frigid February frost.
What can you make from watermelon for the winter?If you have idle time idle oak (or, at worst, a plastic) barrel, you can try to prepare a salty product. However, first of all, worry about storage. Because such an amount of salted watermelons is difficult to eat right away. Well such pickles are stored in the basement of a private house at a sufficiently low temperature. The lower part of the refrigerator is also suitable if it is large. For the recipe, watermelons will be needed in large quantities (to fill them with a barrel), salt and water.
Small ripe berries and completely addin a container, filling it in two thirds. For ten liters of water we take almost a kilogram of salt cooked. We make brine. Fill it in a barrel to cover the product. We endure two or three days. To accelerate the process of watermelons recommend piercing a wooden pointed stick. Three days later the water-melon is ready. Now it needs to be hidden for storage in a cellar or on a glacier, or cleaned in a refrigerator, distributed in suitable containers. This is another version of what can be made from watermelon (with a photo below) - pickle in a barrel. And then even in winter time the product will please you with original taste and nourish the body with useful vitamins.
Its flesh, peeled from seeds, is traditionallyUsed as a basis for the preparation of mixes and smoothies, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. If you have a blender, you only need to mix half a kilogram of pulp with the same amount of juice (for example, cherry or orange), add spices, grated chocolate, nuts - all in a little.
