Macerated Melon Recipes

MELON & VANILLA JAM

Steps:

• Deseed, remove the skin and cut the melon into 1 - 2 cm size cubes. Place in a bowl and mix in the sugar so all the melon is coated. Leave the melon to stand for around 4 - 5 hours, stirring every so often.
• After at least 4 hours the juice of the melon will have been drawn out. Pour the juice into a pan and reserve the melon chunks in a bowl.
• Begin to heat the melon juice in the pan along with the vanilla pod that has been cut in half lengthways and the seeds scraped out. Bring to a simmer and reduce by around half. Add the melon chunks to the juice and bring to a rolling boil.
• Prepare a hot water bath and carefully place the cleaned jars in it. Bring to a simmer and then remove the jars when ready to fill.
• Boil the melon jam until it reaches 105°C / 221°F. Stir in the liquid pectin or follow the instructions for doing so and perform a wrinkle test to check the jams set. Boil for another 5 minutes if the setpoint hasn't been reached and test again.
• Once the jam has reached setting point ladle into the still-hot jars. Add the lids and bands and screw on until just tight. Process the jars in the boiling water bath submerged by at least 1 inch for 10 minutes, starting the timer when the bath reaches a boil.
• After 10 minutes remove from the heat, allow the jars to stand in the boiling water bath for 5 minutes and then lift out with jar tongs. Allow to cool to completely.

MACERATED MELON

Steps:

• Cut off top and bottom poles of melons. Place one cut side against cutting board and slice off rind in segments, cutting smoothly from top to bottom. Repeat with second melon. Halve melons lengthwise and scoop out seeds. Cut flesh into 1inch wedges, then cut wedges crosswise at an angle into diamonds or triangles. In a small bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients. Pour over melon. Stir gently, cover, refrigerate and let macerate for 46 hours. Serve cold.

SWEET POTENTIAL

Steps:

• Once you've peeled, sliced, diced, and weighed the fruit (see note), toss it with an equal weight of sugar, plus the lemon or lime slices, in a Dutch oven. Cover and let macerate overnight. I keep this on the counter because I don't have room in the fridge for something that big and the fruit doesn't mind room temperature for a spell.
• The next day you'll see a syrup has formed around the fruit. There may still be pockets of sugar that have not fully dissolved and that's totally fine. Transfer the Dutch oven to the stove and bring it up to a simmer over medium heat. I always stir it a bit in the beginning to prevent any sugar from burning, but I've never come close to ruining this and I ruin a lot of stuff, so don't fret.
• Once it's at a strong simmer, cover, lower the heat slightly, and cook for 15 minutes, or up to 1 hour.
• For fruits like strawberries, blackberries, figs, and watermelon flesh, 15 minutes may be all the time you need. For these you want the fruit to shrink a bit and the syrup to take on the pale color of the fruit suspended in it. The preserves don't get better the longer you cook them, so don't be a hero and simmer until the syrup thickens. If you do, your preserves will be sticky and unmanageable once they cool. Let the preserves sit at room temperature at least an hour before you refrigerate them. The cooling process is important as it allows fruits like strawberries and watermelon the chance to plump up with syrup and appear less shriveled.
• For apples, pears, citrus, and watermelon rinds, you'll need to cook them a bit longer until some of the fruit becomes translucent. This can take up to an hour, so you'll need to keep an eye on the syrup to make sure it doesn't begin to darken into caramel. Just as with the other fruits, you want this syrup to be pale and thin, so adjust it with water as needed. If it seems as if the syrup begins to reduce in volume, add a cup or so of water to ward off thick, difficult-to-work with preserves. Once about a third of the preserves have taken on that clear veneer, turn the heat off and let them cool in the syrup. As they cool, most of the remaining fruit should also wane translucent.
• Transfer the fruit and syrup into jars, and there you have it. Preserved fruit floating in syrup equals Sweet Potential that will keep in your fridge for basically forever. But this is a book and I can't really claim that, so make the most of your Sweet Potential within 3 months.