ISO Pickled watermelon rind help

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IcyMist

Sous Chef
Joined
May 26, 2005
Messages
682
Location
Florida
After my niece finally gets married I am planning on trying my hand at making homemade watermelon rind pickles like my grandmother use to make. I don't have a TNT recipe and was hoping that some adventurous soul has tried making these icky.....ummmm yummy? treats? Okay I will admit that as a child I never liked the things, but everybody else in the family couldn't wait for watermelon season to come around where Nama would start making her pickles. I want to try canning some where I can give them out as Christmas presents, so have plenty of time.

I have never canned, so this is going to really be fun. :wacko:
 
Hi IcyMist ~ Here's an old recipe that I found for pickled watermelon rind. I can't remember when I used it last ... so can't tell you how the pickles turned out!?

Pickled Watermelon Rind
4 quarts melon rind (12-16 lb. watermelon)
2 tablespoons salt
boiling water
1 quart white vinegar
8 cups sugar
1/4 cup broken stick cinnamon
1 tablespoon whole cloves
2-3 small pieces ginger root (optional)

Peel pieces of melon rind and trim off pink portion. Cut in 2 inch pieces or as wanted. Put rind in a large pot and add salt and boiling water to cover. Simmer until rind is tender. Drain and chill the rind in very cold water at least 1 hour. (It may be left overnight in refrigerator.) After rind has chilled, use a large pot to prepare the syrup. Boil vinegar and sugar together until syrupy (about 10 minutes). Tie spices in a cheesecloth bag and place in syrup. Remove rind from cold water and drain. Place in syrup. Simmer until rind becomes clear and somewhat transparent (add boiling water if syrup becomes too thick before rind is clear). Remove spice bag. Pack rind hot into hot sterilized jars. Cover with boiling syrup, leaving at least an 1/8 inch head space. Seal at once. Makes 5-6 pints.
 
Icy have never canned and have no intention of doing so, seems like a lot of work.

But I can give you a great idea what to do with the pickles.

Cut them into, oh, one inch, three quarter of an inch chunks or so.

Wrap with a half a rasher of bacon or so(you need to just do the amount of bacon by feel here).

Secure with a toothpick.

Put in oven and bake until done (oh, 350, 375 or so and keep an eye on it, maybe ten minutes, until the bacon looks done and maybe a tad crispy).

And serve warm.

There is nothing better.

Good luck with the canning.
 
Icy Mist.... The problem you may have with watermelon pickles is that the melons have been hybridized to have very thin shells so by the time you get all the red meat out and cut away the skin you will have a very skinny pickle. I quit making them years ago for that reason. You can grow them if you can find the seeds in a catalog.... worth a try. Should have no trouble growing them now in FL only takes 60 to 90 days. Yummy good melons too. They like the hot humid climate.
 
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