I decided to make some watermelon rind pickles, a confection I haven’t had for at least 40 years. (Depending on your age and/or where you’ve resided in your life, you may not have ever heard of pickled watermelon rind. It’s a sweet, spiced pickle made from the white part of the watermelon rind.)
So it took me over an hour this morning to remove the green skin from the rind. I tried working with big chunks of rind and smaller slices. I tried a carving knife, a paring knife and a potato peeler. Easiest seemed to be the paring knife and slices, but it was still a chore.
So – in the unlikely even that I ever decide to make watermelon ring pickles again, is there an easier way?
I’ve got a vegetable peeler with a somewhat serrated blade. It’s supposed to be good for hard skinned vegetables such as squash. Have you tried one if those?
Huh, what a coincidence. I did the same thing this weekend too! My watermelon was pretty big, almost 20lbs, and it also took me an hour. I went with slices, and separated them with a sharp knife into three bowls: seeds and skin, flesh, and rind chunks.
I’ve never made it, or even eaten it before. I used this recipe as I wasn’t really interested in the really sweet (6 lbs of sugar?!) versions I saw elsewhere.
I always preferred to cut melon with a very sharp, large-ish knife (very similar to the one in that clip, BTW) and cut from the inside out. As in, quarter the melon, slice out the flesh, then segment the rind and cut to your size preference.
Size is kind of important to what you are asking, Anny. If you want thin slices, you’ll probably want to use a peeler of some sort; chunkier, most likely a knife.
When I worked in retail produce, I always used the sharpest knives available - easier and, oddly enough, safer.
As a kid we used the sliced rind and took forever to go through them all.
A couple of years ago I peeled the skin off a pumpkin using a hand plane. It worked beautifully. That may work for watermelons, although you still have to carve the white off the pink. Overall the plane may work better.
I had pickled watermelon rind , we got it at restaurant my dad really like going to . I wish I could still eat it but I can’t eat sweet stuff anymore . This funny b/c I was thinking of pickled watermelon rind the other day .
Something that works ona squash would be perfect. I’ve got a big Y-shaped peeler that I use on butternut squash. It should easily strip off the green part of the watermelon rind.
Use it on the watermelon while it’s still whole. Then chop the melon in half / wedges / slices or whatever to remove the meat, and voila, you’ve got just the white part of the rind.
Or give the watermelon to a horde of guinea pigs. They’ll eat the green and pink parts of the melon, leaving only the white rind
No, you need to remove the green skin so the pickling brine and/or sugar can fully penetrate the white rind. I tried leaving skin on a few chunks, and they’re noticeably less pickled than their naked bretheren.
I hope yours came out yummy! I haven’t tried mine yet. My recipe called for more traditional spices – cinnamon & cloves. I canned them, and will try them later in the year.
Thanks, Gary & Mama Zappa. I’ll shop for a peeler like you describe. I have a recipe for pickled pumpkin I may try, and I think that one calls for the pumpkin to be peeled.
I had prepared a butternut squash prior to owning this. The de-rindification process involved a fair bit of bad language, a ruined carrot peeler, a knife, and extreme risk of bloodletting (actual blood loss was surprisingly minor, fortunately). A friend mentioned this sort of peeler, so I bought one.
As I told some buddies "this is the only thing that’ll take the rind off a butternut squash without taking MY rind off as well.
The guinea pig suggestion was obviously facetious (if nothing else, the melon would be on the floor of the cage amidst all the pee and poop), but it was funny when we’d give them a chunk: they’d eat all the pink part, and just the green part of the rind.
If you are steaming or baking those butternut squash in preparation for souping it, don’t even bother peeling. The blender completely disintegrates it, and you benefit from a little extra fibre in your diet! If I’m roasting it as a side, e.g., to a roast dinner, I just serve it on the skin and we eat around it.
