Jelly and soup with watermelon

The other day, I got a watermelon from my mother. She often goes for a drive, and this time she had been a farmers’ market in Iwata and bought it for me. The watermelon was oval and smaller than spherical watermelons sold in supermarkets, however, it was still too big to eat at a time. I wondered how I should eat it up.

I cut the watermelon into round slices. This is the first piece. I was surprised to see that the outer skin was much thinner than expected. I set it in a dish and ate it with a spoon.

It was juicy and sweet. Since it wasn’t a hot day, I didn’t keep the watermelon in the refrigerator before I cut it. But it still cooled me down. Though this piece was big, I thought it ok, because this was the first local watermelon for me to eat this year. I enjoyed eating it.

Next day, I made agar jelly with diced watermelon. I used a pack of agar powder (4g). According to the description of the outer package, one pack of agar powder contains as much dietary fiber as 2.5 heads of lettuce!

The recipe was very easy.
1. Heat about 450cc of water with 4g of agar power in it.
2. When it starts to boil, turn down the heat and melt the agar powder for two minutes.
3. Pour it on diced watermelon in cups. (I also used diced sugared semi-dried apple instead of sugar)
4. After cooling down for a while, put the cups in the refrigerator to cool further.

When I took out the jelly from the refrigerator, it looked like this.

At first, I thought I had messed up because the agar had become cloudy. Furthermore, it was harder than I expected. Later I checked on the Internet and learned that agar becomes cloudy when solidified without sugar, and more water should be added if you want to make it softer. However, the combination of watermelon and semi-dried apple was not bad.

Then I thought of making the best use of the juiciness of watermelon. There were some recipes of soup using watermelon and tomato on the Internet. I made one just by blending 250 g of watermelon and a tomato (both cut in pieces) with a blender. Then I put basil on top.

This simple soup tasted interesting. I had never thought of this combination before. While eating, I added some salt. The recipes on the Internet had some other ingredients such as olive oil, garlic, and some bread (to make the soup thicker). I thought these other ingredients might have made it real soup to distinguish it from juice. But I was still satisfied with my simplified soup and thought it may be good to eat when it is extremely hot in summer.

Later, I tried to make jelly again. This time, I used 400cc of soymilk and 180cc of watermelon juice (made with the blender) instead of water. The agar part looked orangish because of the watermelon.

I found it was much better than the first one made with water. It was moderately soft, and watermelon juice added not only the color but also sweetness to soymilk. I was quite satisfied with my experiment and began to think what to mix next time.

I still have a small piece of watermelon in the refrigerator. I’ll have it as a dessert after eating hot chana masala or chickpea curry tomorrow, which must be one of the best ways to eat a watermelon.