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| Watermelon Rind Curry |
Last week, I watched a TV show that touched on a topic close to my heart. John Oliver, the British comic, with the hugely popular talk show “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” basically scolded all of us Americans for being big food-wasters. V and I are not too bad in that respect. Nothing makes us sadder than seeing good food go to waste. However I can see how we take the abundance of good and cheap food so much for granted in this country that we can’t be bothered to save scraps. The amount of food that goes straight from farm to dump in California is especially appalling considering the drought and all.
So, here goes my attempt at trying to salvage every last bit of edible mass before throwing something away. And thus we come back to watermelons! Yeah, they are super sweet this year (the few blessings of the California drought again?). But after eating all the sweet red flesh, we throw away so much! Watermelon Rind pickle, a Southern delicacy is a way to use the parts usually thrown away, but I did not have the time to pickle this weekend. So I opted to make a simple curry with Indian spices.
Recipe for Watermelon Rind Curry
[Printable Recipe]
Ingredients:
- 1 medium sized watermelon
- 3-4 Tbsp Organic Ghee
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 tsp cumin seeds (available at your local ethnic Indian grocery store)
- 1 tsp fennel seeds (available at your local ethnic Indian grocery store)
- 4-5 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
- 1 inch piece of ginger, grated
- 2-3 serrano or Thai green chilies, split into two (use 1 or 2 more if you like it spicy, or omit if you like it mild)
- 1 tsp Turmeric powder (available at your local ethnic Indian grocery store)
- 1 tsp coriander powder (available at your local ethnic Indian grocery store)
- 1/2 tsp Dried raw mango powder (available at your local ethnic Indian grocery store, known as aamchur)
- 1 tsp Garam Masala
- Salt to taste
- Fresh mint or cilantro for garnish
- Some water to cook
- Save the peel after eating the red juicy sweet part of the watermelon. Use a sturdy peeler and peel away the hard green shell and discard. (My swivel peeler did the job very well).
- Cut the white rind in to very small cubes using a chef knife and set aside.
- Heat 1 Tbsp of ghee in a pan and add the onion. When the onion is translucent and well-cooked, let it cool and grind in to a paste in the food processor and set aside
- Heat the remaining ghee and add the cumin seeds and fennel seeds
- When fragrant, in about a minute, add the garlic, ginger and green chilies
- After 3 minutes, add the watermelon rind, turmeric powder and 4-5 Tbsp of water. Close and cook on low heat until the watermelon rind is soft, around 15-20 minutes
- After the rind is soft, add the coriander powder, dried mango powder, garam masala and salt to taste and stir for a minute
- Add the onion paste, stir and cook for 5 more minutes on medium heat and switch off
- Garnish with some tender fresh mint leaves or chopped cilantro and serve hot with white rice and a dollop of ghee
- Don’t worry if a little bit of red flesh is left on the rind. It will add some sweetness to the dish.
- As mentioned in an earlier post, I love my Global Chef’s Knife. It is great for slicing through watermelons and other toughies. The Swivel Peeler did a good job of getting the hard green skin off.
- Indian cooking uses a lot of spices but most people who cook Indian food regularly don’t think too much about it. A spice box such as one below is kept within reach in the kitchen. When the oil is hot, cooks instinctively know which spices should be thrown in. Spices are often used for their medicinal value. For eg. Turmeric is de rigeur when cooking vegetables or lentils. Turmeric is good stuff and there is tons of research on the benefits. Fennel seeds which are used in this recipe are not only wonderfully fragrant, but also aid in digestion.
The watermelon rind curry has a mild sweetness to it which is played off by the spices very well. In reality, we did not expect it to be so tasty, but from now on I am never throwing away the rind! Saveur.com has a similar recipe using the entire watermelon but I think I prefer the curry with just the rind.
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| Watermelon Rind Curry |
Please let us know how you use up your vegetable scraps in creative ways!