Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 282 kcal | 80 kcal |
| Protein | 5.6 g | 1.6 g |
| Fat | 1.9 g | 0.5 g |
| saturated | 0.2 g | 0.1 g |
| Carbohydrate | 67.8 g | 19.2 g |
| sugars | 58.4 g | 16.5 g |
| Fibre | 3.8 g | 1.1 g |
| Sodium | 9 mg | 3 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 5.2 kg watermelon
Instructions
- Pick a melon that feels heavy for its size and has a yellow patch on one side. That patch is where it sat on the ground ripening; a white one was cut early and dries to something bland.
- Cut the melon into slabs 13 mm thick and take the rind off each one, following the curve with a knife rather than a peeler. Leave the pale flesh nearest the rind behind — it stays fibrous and never sweetens.
- Flick the black seeds out as you go. A seed left in a strip turns bitter once everything around it has concentrated.
- Lay the pieces on mesh with air all round them. The trays will drip for the first few hours, and any two pieces touching will be the last on the tray to finish.
- Dry at 57 °C for 20 hours. Expect the slabs to shrink to roughly a third of their size, and expect a longer run than the clock promises if your slices came out thick at one end.
- Done is leathery and chewy, like a fruit strip, with no cool damp patch when you tear a piece open. Tearing beats bending as a test here, because the sugar keeps a wet piece feeling firm.
- Leave everything on a rack until it stops feeling warm, then pack it loosely in a jar and shake it every morning for a week. There is enough sugar in watermelon that one moist piece will make the whole jar sticky.
- Once the glass stays clear, tighten the lid and keep it in a dark cupboard for six months. In humid weather put the jar in the fridge instead — this fruit takes water back out of the air faster than most.
