Watermelon Wedges with Lime Salt
Deep Run Roots
My grandmother always salted her watermelon. I thought it was weird at the time, but now I know a little salt brings out flavors and makes sweet things taste sweeter. This adds the zing of lime to the salt, which gives a bit of a Tajin vibe. If you've never had it, it is a classic combination of salt, lime, and mildly spicy chiles used often on fresh fruit and vegetables in Mexican cuisine.
If you've never tried salting watermelon, this is a really simple "recipe" to get you started. Just...don't overdo it. Nobody wants a mouth full of salt.
I found this recipe, such as it is, here: https://harmonyvalleyfarm.blogspot.com/2021/08/26csaboxfeaturingwatermelon.html
Since this is just watermelon with salt (and a relatively small amount of lime zest), the nutrition is dependent on how much watermelon you eat, plus some sodium, which I don't usually track here.
Captions
[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:07]: with Heather today we are going to be
[00:08]: working out of Vivian Howard's Deep Run
[00:11]: Roots which I don't think we've worked
[00:13]: out of recently but we did a lot of her
[00:15]: recipes before and I will link them all
[00:17]: at the end and and they're very easy to
[00:20]: find on my on my channel one of the
[00:23]: first books I've cooked from
[00:25]: um
[00:26]: but I've never made this and it's a very
[00:28]: quick thing and I was I had some
[00:31]: watermelon so I decided I was going to
[00:33]: to try it out
[00:35]: um
[00:36]: we are making watermelon wedges with
[00:39]: lime salt now I'm not cutting mine in
[00:41]: wedges because I've already cut mine up
[00:44]: I needed I made some watermelon rind
[00:48]: pickles there is a recipe for that in
[00:50]: here the one I used was not the one in
[00:51]: here but
[00:52]: I might do that a little bit later this
[00:55]: season we'll see
[00:56]: so I had already gone ahead and and cut
[00:59]: my watermelon into chunks
[01:02]: and that's fine it doesn't really matter
[01:05]: um all we are making today is the lime
[01:08]: salt that's all that really matters so
[01:10]: it's the only real recipe part so
[01:13]: there are a lot of lines in this
[01:17]: but what we need to start with is some
[01:20]: salt
[01:22]: this was clean
[01:25]: this is a lot easier than pouring there
[01:27]: we go so we have some coarse sea salt
[01:32]: um
[01:32]: she suggests Malden sea salt but that's
[01:36]: not something I can find at my regular
[01:37]: grocery store and I did not have it so
[01:41]: I found this and it will be fine
[01:45]: and then
[01:48]: quite a lot of limes and we're going to
[01:50]: zest them we're not going to need the
[01:52]: juice or anything but we're going to
[01:55]: zest them I'll
[01:56]: maybe I'll make some margaritas later
[01:58]: but uh zest zested with a microplane so
[02:03]: I'm going to be doing this for a little
[02:04]: while and you can probably watch me on
[02:06]: Fast Forward
[02:15]: so now the idea is to
[02:18]: pinch
[02:21]: the
[02:23]: lime zest into the salt to bruise the
[02:29]: lime zest and get all of the oils and
[02:32]: stuff from it into the salt but without
[02:35]: um
[02:37]: we don't want to make the salt less sort
[02:41]: of flaky and coarse this is not super
[02:43]: flaky but it is very coarse
[02:46]: so we're just sort of mixing it up
[02:48]: there's a lot of lime it is a super
[02:51]: green
[02:56]: salt
[02:58]: all right I'm gonna call that good
[03:00]: enough and I've got it all over my
[03:01]: fingers but I'm going to
[03:05]: just dust
[03:07]: you don't want to put too much on here
[03:09]: if you've never had salt on watermelon
[03:12]: it really
[03:13]: is is great it sort of enhances the
[03:16]: sweetness in my opinion
[03:19]: and this reminds me a lot of like tahin
[03:22]: which you can get on fruit cups Mexican
[03:28]: areas there's a food truck nearby that
[03:32]: does that kind of thing and another
[03:34]: little
[03:35]: frozen dessert shop where you can get
[03:38]: these and I love it often it's on
[03:41]: mangoes or other sorts of melons and
[03:43]: even cucumbers but this is and that
[03:46]: usually has some sort of chili powder in
[03:48]: it but this is but also lime and this is
[03:50]: just the lime so
[03:53]: I'm gonna give it a try
[03:54]: [Music]
[04:12]: I really like that it is salty but it
[04:15]: enhances the sweetness of the of the
[04:18]: watermelon
[04:20]: a little bit of citrus Tang from the
[04:23]: lime
[04:24]: thumbs up for me but again I like it
[04:26]: like that
[04:28]: um
[04:29]: if you've never tried it before go a
[04:31]: little bit light especially since the
[04:33]: salt is a coarse
[04:35]: so pretty salty in one bite but yeah I
[04:38]: really like it and I hope you like it
[04:42]: um
[04:43]: if you have enjoyed watching me make
[04:45]: this give me a thumbs up hit the
[04:47]: Subscribe button and come back and watch
[04:49]: me make something else next week
[04:51]: [Music]