Oh, Why do We Waste the Rind?
The other night, one of our abundantly generous refugee neighbours brought me a hearty home cooked meal - by no means the first time. Her favourite ingredient of late is highly versatile, subtly sweet, delicate and crunchy and 100% vegetarian. And although widely available in North America, there it's treated as trash or at most, compost. But never do we consider it dinner. What is this amazing unsung hero? Why it's watermelon rind. Indeed!
So far I've had egg and watermelon rind stuffed dumplings (a.k.a. jiaozi, pot stickers, gyoza), watermelon rind and cabbage soup and this meal from the other night.
Watermelon rind stir fry, sweet-salty fried peanuts,red bean rice, egg and cilantro soup (partially consumed)
After some research I discovered what must be the root cause of this oversight in our cuisine: the National Watermelon Promotion Board (covering the US and Canada) thinks skin is for sculpting not eating. They have over 150 recipes -- from watermelon feta bruschetta to shrimp watermelon sate -- but do you see the word "rind" mentioned once? NO!
(If you know something about watermelon rind cooking you might guess that the pickle recipe has some rind in it, but they don't dare use the r-word in the title. I mean, everyone has watermelon rind pickle recipe, even Martha Steward, but have you ever been served one?).
When I looked elsewhere I did find a few rind recipes: Fried corn-meal watermelon rinds and Gingered watermelon rind look good. For the rest you'll have to go visit your own Chinese neighbour.
So you know: Watermelon peel is also rich in Vitamin C, Calcium, Potassium, Phosphorus and Chinese medicine uses rind extract as an herbal laxative and to lower cholesterol.
And just to make sure the Watermelon Carver's Guild doesn't come after me, here are some suggestions of what you can do before you serve up a tasty dish of peel.
This entry was posted
on Friday, July 28, 2006 at 7:20 p.m..
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
August 11, 2006 5:08 a.m.Hi!
Stumbled upon your blog, and thought I'd say hi.
I really like it, so I will be back.Interesting reading, and nice photos. I have to say that the melon carvings impressed me.
Well, take care and enjoy your journey!!
Greetings from Monsoon in Norway :-)
» Post a Comment