Name: How to Enjoy a Watermelon
Ingredients: 1 whole watermelon; 1 bottle of claret (or champagne); wild flowers for garnish

How to Enjoy a Watermelon

Ingredients

1 whole watermelon
1 bottle of claret (or champagne)
wild flowers for garnish

Directions

Prepare

Select a dark green, fat watermelon with a yellowish spot.
Chill the watermelon on ice for 24 hours.

Fill and serve

Cut a hole in one end and pour in the claret or champagne.
Plug the hole and chill the watermelon on ice again.
Slice the watermelon longitudinally and serve with wild flowers.

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: Provides the sweet, juicy flesh and the vessel that holds the wine.
Claret or champagne: Supplies the wine flavour that soaks into the watermelon flesh.

“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.