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Friday, April 10, 2015

watermelon pickles

I served these with Easter dinner.


None of our guests had even heard of watermelon pickles and were very eager to find out how I made them.

(Here's the post with how I made them, last summer.)

But I thought you might want to see what they actually look like, once made.

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Using the pickle juice

And one more watermelon-y pickle thing this week. As we've been going through the jars of these pickles, I've saved the liquid from each jar, not sure what I'd do with it all. But as it's flavored with just vinegar, sugar, cinnamon and cloves (no savory flavors), we all thought it would go well with baking.


So this week, I made a batch of whole wheat muffins, using watermelon pickle "juice" as most of the liquid. I also added some extra cinnamon to the batter. Not only could we not tell that there was pickle juice in the muffins, but they were gobbled up very quickly!

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10 comments:

  1. You are the queen of "Waste not, want not." :0

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi live and learn,
      I take that as a high compliment! I think not wasting is an even bigger priority to me than saving money, or the planet.

      Delete
  2. The watermelon rinds look so pretty!! It certainly bothers me when we throw our rinds away, and whenever I want to make something out of it, my husband will remind me that his mother tried to make kim chee from the rinds and it was not tasty, so bland. Drawing from the recipe, could the daily boiling of the vinegar/sugar sauce help evaporate the water content, so the final pickling sauce is not diluted? I may try that this summer. If that works, watermelon rinds will be our new cucumbers for pickling in some local ethnic recipes. Your recipe for watermelon pickles sounds good too!! Cinnamon will be a new pickling taste for us...surprised vinegar works in a muffin, but if pineapple works, I guess sugar/vinegar (mostly sugar) should too.

    YHF

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi YHF,
      I think watermelon in itself is very bland and so could pick up any flavors that you'd add to it in pickling. I'd be interested to hear what flavors you pickle yours with.

      Hmm, I never thought about why the reheating of the pickle juice. Except maybe to kill off any developing bacteria, or the heated solution could penetrate the rind better. I don't know. But your idea to keep it from becoming diluted with water seeping from the watermelon rind, is a good one. Could be.

      I'll be making another batch of muffins this week, with leftover juice. I figure the vinegar flavor isn't that far off from a lemony flavor in baking. Back in prairie days, vinegar was a common flavoring for pies, when there wasn't much else.

      Delete
    2. There are many Japanese pickling recipes using a variety of vegetables (turnip, cabbage, cucumber, onion, ginger)...to varying amounts of salt/vinegar/sugar. Sometimes the ratio of vinegar to salt is 1:1, rarely is it more sugar to vinegar like the watermelon pickles, so not sure if the pickling sauce will be good to reuse in baking. I was thinking of trying watermelon rinds in place of cucumbers in a "namasu" recipe. Not sure how it will mix with konbu, carrots or konyaku. I may pickle the watermelon rind first, boil the pickling sauce for two or three days, then add the rest of the ingredients for the final pickling.

      I didn't know baking involved vinegar in the old days...interesting to know. Yes, more like lemon than pineapple. In fact, many pickling recipes give the option of using lemon juice to replace some vinegar in the recipe.

      YHF

      Delete
    3. Major ooops....NOT ratio of vinegar to salt, but the ratio of vinegar to SUGAR is 1:1

      YHF

      Delete
    4. Also I noticed how the watermelon took on the color of cinnamon or cloves, so I don't think I'll add carrots to the pickling. Usually I can add carrots with cucumbers and not have the cucumbers absorb any color (only the juice turns orange), but I think watermelon rinds may not escape being colored. Konbu may turn it slightly dingy, but it goes so well in pickling cucumbers.

      YHF

      Delete
    5. Okay, so I think I get the idea of the type of pickles you make. They sound very savory and piquant. If you try using watermelon rind, let e know if it works.

      thanks for all the info!

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. Hi Anne,
      I've got a shelf of pickle juices in the fridge. I'm having to be more and more creative in using them all up! I'm glad that baking is working for this particular pickle juice.

      Delete

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