Chilled Watermelon Juice/ Soup/ Granita: The Perfect Summer Cooler

Here is yet another antidote for the heat of the summer. Along with mangoes, this also the season for various varieties of thirst quenching cucumbers, musambi (sweet lime), and watermelons. We do get two varieties of watermelon here, a lighter green one which is a light to medium shade of pink on the inside and a darker green watermelon which is dark pink to an almost ruby red colour inside.

Right now, it seems to be the season for the lighter coloured variety. It is a common sight to find small Egyptian pyramid-like mounds of watermelon for sale, stacked on the sides of the road.
Whatever the colour these sweet watermelons are, they are a great and tasty way to keep quench a summer thirst. If just biting into crisp juicy slices of this fruit begin to feel monotonous, there are other many ways to have your watermelon and eat (or drink) it.






Here are a couple of ways we have out watermelons. These recipes are very flexible and you can add or subtract ingredients according to your taste.


Ingredients:

about half a fresh water melon, cut into chunks
juice of 1 sweet lime (musambi)
juice of half a lemon
1 tbsp honey
1 1/2 tsp fresh ginger juice
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp chaat masala (optional)


OR

about half a fresh water melon, cut into chunks
2 tomatoes, deseeded and chopped
1 cup orange juice
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp rose syrup
freshly crushed pepper
5 to 6 torn mint leaves
3/4 tsp salt


Method:

If you chill the watermelon chunks and then blend them, you can serve this cooler almost immediately, when the flavours are very fresh which would be the best way to serve this.
Whatever your set of accompanying ingredients, put them along with the water melon chunks and blend till a smooth homogenous mixture is obtained.
If you do not like the grainy texture of mixture, strain and serve. Do add sugar if you feel your watermelon isn't sweet enough.
You can serve this in a glass as a drink or in a bowls as a chilled fruit soup. If you freeze this mixture, you can serve it as granita.






If you prefer ice in your cold drinks, adding ice to these watermelon coolers only dilutes them and makes them taste awful. Here are two suggestions to overcome this:
- You can pour out a couple of glasses of the watermelon concoction into ice trays and freeze them for use in these, instead of ice.
- You can also chill the watermelon cooler in the freezer for about halfan hour to an hour till the top layer just freezes. Break this layer, mix and serve this slush-like mixture.

This recipe makes enough for 3 to 4 tall glasses.

The only thing about watermelons I don't like is trying to cut them into chunks without wasting the pulp yet getting rid of the seeds! So if any one has some time tested method of chunking watermelon without agonizing over those pesky black seeds, I shall be grateful to hear your suggestions.


I shall be conspicuous by my absence here and at all my regular blogs and others for the next two weeks or so. We're off on a trip back home for a short break. It will not be much of a vacation as we will be going to attend to some family related matters, but a break is a break.
So see you all at the end of May.

Also featured by Chicago Sun-Times