Home › Pickles-Relishes › Watermelon Rind Preserves (Pare off the green skin cut)
Watermelon Rind Preserves (Pare off the green skin cut)
Pare off the green skin, cut the watermelon rind into small pieces, let stand over night in water (with a handful of salt and 1 small t alum added to the water.) In the morning drain and steam the rinds until soft enough to pierce with a fork. Weigh the pieces, and to each pound of rinds, add a pound and a half of sugar. Melt the sugar, using a pt. water to each 1½ lb. sugar. When quite clear, put in rinds and simmer for two hours, or perhaps longer until syrup becomes thick. One-half hour before removing from stove add lemon peel, allowing one lemon to a quart of syrup. Is delicious.
Fannie Grinnell.
A straightforward sweet preserve, but two things in the original need attention before you start: what part of the melon you are actually using, and a sugar-to-water ratio that looks like a printer's error.
- Use only the white rindPare away every trace of the green skin and trim off all the pink flesh. Green skin stays tough and bitter, and leftover flesh collapses into mush during the two-hour simmer.
- "1 small t alum"One small teaspoon of powdered alum, used in the overnight soak as a firming agent. Food-grade alum is still sold in the spice aisle, but it is optional; the soak works with salt alone, and the rind will simply be a little softer.
- The overnight soak'A handful of salt' is an imprecise measure, anywhere from a couple of tablespoons to a quarter cup, in enough water to cover the rind. Do it in the refrigerator rather than on the counter, and drain and rinse well in the morning or the finished preserve will taste salty.
- "A pt. water to each 12 lb. sugar"This is almost certainly a typesetting slip; a pint of water will not dissolve twelve pounds of sugar. A workable syrup is about a cup of water per pound of sugar, added gradually and heated until clear. Treat the printed ratio as unreliable rather than trying to follow it.
- Weigh the rindThe proportions hang on this step, not on volume. A medium watermelon yields roughly 2 to 3 lb of trimmed rind, which calls for 3 to 4½ lb of sugar.
- Judging "until syrup becomes thick"The rind turns translucent and the syrup sheets off a spoon at about 220°F. Two hours is a guide, not a rule; a wide pan reduces faster than a deep one.
- Lemon peelOne lemon's peel per quart of syrup, added in the last half hour so the oils do not cook off. Pare it in strips with no white pith, which turns bitter over a long boil.
- Storing itThe recipe stops at the stove and says nothing about sealing. Refrigerate the cooled preserve and use it within a few weeks, or follow a current tested boiling-water-bath procedure if you want shelf-stable jars.
Watermelon rind preserves belong to the long tradition of thrift sweetmeats, in which the part of a fruit that would otherwise be thrown to the pigs is candied in heavy syrup and kept for winter. The technique is old and widespread, showing up in Southern American, Pennsylvania Dutch and Russian kitchens alike, and it depends on the fact that the white rind is nearly flavorless and holds its shape, taking on whatever sugar and spice it is given. Preserves of this kind were commonly served in small dishes alongside meat rather than as jam on toast. The signed attribution to Fannie Grinnell is characteristic of community-compiled cookbooks, which gathered contributors' own handwritten recipes and printed them largely as received, errors in the sugar ratio included.