What to do with unripe watermelon?

[Kitchen Imp]

We opened up a watermelon too early last night. It's perfectly textured, not mealy or anything like that, nicely juicy, just not sweet and not strongly watermelon-flavored yet.

Does anyone have a recipe that showcases unripe watermelon to its best advantage? I've thought of pureeing it, adding sugar, and putting it in the freezer as a kind of poor-man's sorbet, but short of that I don't know what to do with it. Thanks in advance.

[Kitchen Imp]

Thanks for your help, all. In the end I gave up on anything elaborate and just pureed the heck out of it, strained out some of the residual pulp, added sugar, chilled it, and we drank it like a Mexican agua fresca. It ended up being very refreshing that way.

[isa1]

Here is the easiest salad recipe. slice the watermelon in about 1 inch slices, put a slice of feta cheese on top, a bit of olive oil, pepper and basil. sounds weird but it's delicious!

[PseudoNerd]

it's fabulous!

[Kitchen Imp]

These are all great, thanks. Does anyone have any tips on making sorbet with it? (Sweetpotater, how do you go about doing it?) I don't have an ice cream/sorbet maker, but I do have a great food processor for pureeing it.

[alex8alot]

Nothing makes me sadder than splitting open a watermelon to find pale. dull pulp. I throw it into a blender with ice cubes, lemon juice and simple syrup for a drink.

[DetectDave]

What about watermelon rind pickles? Mmm..like Grandmaw used to make.

[Louise]

Yes. And one good thing about it is that besides being delicious, it is actually best with those not totally ripe watermelons with the thick white rind.

As for the pulp, recipesource has a recipe for watermelon pie.

[Danimal n Hustler]

Add sugar and some cheap generic charcoal filtered vodka, put it all into a icebox, mix with your bare hands and arms, serve in red plastic cups like back in college, wake up next morning hankering for some pho

-Hustler

[Budino]

make a salad? I think Nigella has a recipe for watermelon with olives and feta. Or maybe something more thai, with fish sauce, hot peppers and lime?

And, pickle the rinds! I had this at Rosewater in Brooklyn once as part of a salad. Unbelieveably tasty. Been meaning to try that myself...

[Kagey]

That Nigella salad doesn't work very well with unripe watermelon, sadly. I think the watermelon really needs to be sweet to mix properly with the lime-soaked onions.

[Johnresa]

Well you can always use it as a substitute for mango in a salsa recipe. That might be tasty.

[sweetpotater]

I make sorbets out of my so-so watermelon. Adding lime juice will make it more interesting. Basil, too. (Don't forget to add a little vodka to help the texture.)

[laurendlewis]

Maybe blend with some nectar or juice or something to give texture to a smoothie?

How disappointing... sorry...

[ESNY]

Soak chunks of it in vodka and get drunk?

[Megiac]

That was going to be my suggestion as well....

[Biggie]

that was the first thing I thought of too....

You could also soak it in tequila, some lime juice, some simple syrup, freeze, then blen for watermelon margaritas