Grilled Melons

Cut a seedless watermelon into big rectangular strips, three-quarters of an inch to an inch thick. How big? You’ll harvest maybe three of them from the center part of the melon. Add a little bit of honey, sugar, or agave nectar, and a dash of salt and onion powder. Seal the watermelon steaks in bags and cook sous vide at 195 degrees for two hours. Then freeze the product overnight. The next day, grill the melon steaks on a barbeque and season them as you would tuna steaks (i.e., with a soy-orange glaze, or chives and black pepper, or sesame oil). The grilled “steaks” of watermelon look like grilled tuna, have a texture like rare beef, and a very mild flavor suitable for whatever flavoring you use during or after the grilling, and unless you use a condiment made with gelatin, are suitable for service to vegans.

On the other hand, if you want to grill dessert, this isn’t the way to go. Even with the sugar added, the melon steak isn’t very sweet, and it’s too tough to cut through with a spoon. I had better feedback sprinkling brown sugar and lemon juice on crescents of honeydew melon and grilling that up, taking the melon off the heat as the sugar carmelized, and serving that with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Burt Likko

Pseudonymous Portlander. Homebrewer. Atheist. Recovering litigator. Recovering Republican. Recovering Catholic. Recovering divorcé. Recovering Former Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. House Likko's Words: Scite Verum. Colite Iusticia. Vivere Con Gaudium.

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