Compressed Watermelon Sashimi

To accompany our oyster miso soup, we took inspiration from our recent meal at Kapnos, and tried our hand at compressed watermelon, with an Asian twist.  We don't have a vacuum sealer, so we searched the interwebs for technique ideas and suggestions.

Start by slicing up your watermelon.  You want rectangular slices so they'll mimic pieces of tuna sashimi.  The easiest way to do this is by slicing the watermelon in half.  Slice off the round end as well.  Then cut off your rind, like you're supreming an orange.  Just let your knife follow the curve of the melon.  Then cut off the rounded edges so you're left with a a more cubical piece.  Then you can slice it into pieces that mimic sashimi.

To cut some of the sweetness and add a bit of flavor, we brushed some fish sauce onto each slice, and then stacked the slices into towers.  Then we tightly wrapped the towers in plastic wrap.  The juice will start to seep out immediately.  Do your best to wrap them tightly, and secure the plastic wrap with rubber bands.  Since the juices will leach out, we placed our little packages in a bowl, and put them in the freezer to compress even more.

We made ours prior to making our oyster miso soup, so they had time to compress, but not completely freeze.  To finish off the watermelon, we sliced up some radishes and garnished them with chopped parsley and cilantro, and some sliced serrano peppers.  The sweetness of the watermelon was balanced out nicely by the subtle heat of the peppers and the saltiness of the fish sauce.

Our other watermelon stacks are still in the freezer, but when we're ready to eat them, we'll just be sure to let them defrost before eating them.  It was a fairly simple way to achieve compressed watermelon without having a vacuum sealer too.

Southern Hospitality

Tonight's dinner was quick and easy, and took me back to my days spent in NC.  Surrounded by bbq, this is where I learned to love cole slaw on my bbq, and vinegar-based sauce on my pulled pork.

Luckily, we already had everything we'd need on hand.  The pulled pork came from this week's share.  It already had some sauce on it that was slighly sweet, so we just threw it into a pan to reheat, along with some Dinosaur Bar-B-Que roasted garlic and honey sauce to balance out the sweetness.  I'm sure by now you're tired of me blabbering on and on about how delicious Dinosaur is, so I'll spare you the spiel, but I can't help it.  Its just THAT good!

We finally put some of our cabbage to use by shredding a few leaves, along with one of the carrots we got yesterday, to make some coleslaw.  For the dressing, we just mixed together some red wine vinegar, whole grain mustard, cumin, and a little grapeseed oil.  It had a nice tang to balance out the sweetness of the cabbage and carrot, and the cumin gave it a nice depth of flavor.

And our bbq meal wouldn't be complete without some fries...sweet potato fries!  For seasoning, we went with some truffle salt, roasted garlic salt, parsley and rosemary.  We tried to emulate the village fries at Good Stuff Eatery, adding our own twist with the truffle and garlic salts.

This was probably one of the easiest meals we've put together, and we even have leftovers for lunch tomorrow!  I can't complain about that!