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MELON BASICS
Buying: A melon that sits heavy in your hands and lets out a hollow-sounding plunk when tapped will yield the juiciest fruit.
Cooking: When sharing the plate with bolder flavors, watermelon adds a cooling sweetness to the equation. Pair with spicy peppers or a briny cheese like feta and save the rind for pickling.
RIPE AND REFRESHING
Watermelon provides some of the season’s finest juice-running-down-your-chin moments, right up there with tomatoes. The two pair together harmoniously.
AROUND RVA
The Daily Kitchen & Bar: Lemongrass balances the sweetness of watermelon puree in this sippable martini that marries vodka and Virginia-made Blue Ridge Bucha.
La Michoacana: The watermelon, or ”sandia” paleta is a treasure on a sweltering day. Take it poolside and live your best life.
Strangeways Brewing: Originally created for the Carytown Watermelon Festival, this cheek-puckering sour beer made with local fruit conjures watermelon candy and sunshine.
“Every year when my family planted our garden, I’d talk my grandfather into planting watermelon seeds.” —Cory Chaney, Julep’s New Southern Cuisine
Cory Chaney (Photo courtesy Julep's New Southern Cuisine)
COOK LIKE A LOCAL
Chesapeake Blue Crab Salad
By Cory Chaney, chef at Julep's New Southern Cuisine
Julep’s New Southern Cuisine Chef Cory Chaney vacuum-seals fresh watermelon to improve its flavor and texture. “By compressing fruit, you change the cell structure,” he says. “Essentially, you're making the texture of the watermelon more firm, while enhancing the flavor.” Chaney then uses the fruit in a blue crab salad that screams summertime.
Julep’s New Southern Cuisine chef Cory Chaney vacuum-seals fresh watermelon to improve its flavor and texture. “By compressing fruit, you change the cell structure,” Chaney says. “If you add flavoring agents to the bag, the fruit absorbs them when air is let back in. Essentially, you're making the texture of the watermelon more firm, while enhancing the flavor.”
Crab Salad
8 ounces Maryland blue crab, picked
1 cup Duke's mayonnaise
1 1/2 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon chives, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Compressed Watermelon
1 watermelon, cut into 2-by-4-inch rectangles
1 cup fresh lavender, chopped fine
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cup gin (more if you want a stronger juniper flavor)
1 tablespoon sea salt
Sweet Corn Aioli
2 egg yolks
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup soybean oil
1 1/2 teaspoons white balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup fresh sweet corn kernels, blanched
1 teaspoon salt
Combine all the crab salad ingredients and mix gently, being careful not to break up the pieces of crab. Set aside and store in the fridge until ready to plate.
For the compressed watermelon, if you have a vacuum sealer, put all ingredients in a vacuum bag and pull a full, 100% vacuum on the fruit. The fruit will be ready to use right away, the seal immediately amplifying the flavor, or can be kept in the fridge for two days. If not using a vacuum sealer, toss watermelon with remaining ingredients and allow to marinate for at least two hours or overnight.
Blend all the sweet corn aioli ingredients, except the oil, in a blender or food processor. Once blended fully, slowly stream in the soybean oil until thickened. Check seasoning.
Finally, plate the crab salad, and then garnish it with the watermelon and aioli.
