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Salad

Salting Watermelon Rind

A brined watermelon rind preserved in a salt solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Salting Watermelon Rind

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Peel and remove all red meat from the watermelon rind.

  2. Cut the rind into cubes about ½ inch square.

Brine

  1. Place the cubes in a cask and cover with a false head, similar to cucumbers.

  2. Make an 80‑degree brine by dissolving 2 pounds of salt in 1 gallon of water.

  3. Fill the cask with this brine.

  4. After 2 days, add 10 pounds of salt on top of the false head.

  5. Let the rind sit in the brine for 10 days.

Transfer and store

  1. Transfer the rind to a clean cask and seal it.

  2. Fill with fresh 60‑degree brine made from 1½ pounds of salt in 1 gallon of water.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Watermelon rind
Forms the pickled texture once it is cured in brine.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the rind and preserves it during the long brine soak.

The step that matters

Adding the extra salt after 2 days. Salt draws water out of the rind and into the brine, and a cure that is too weak can let the rind spoil before it firms up. Adding more salt on top of the false head keeps the brine strong enough during the long soak.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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