Napa Jalapeno Watermelon Salad
I really need to take that course in iPhone food photography because here’s another recipe that’s amazing and the photo doesn’t do it justice. We got this watermelon salad recipe from a street fair in Napa and it’s really delicious because of it’s secret ingredient.
Pickled jalapenos!
Slice up the peppers. Shorebird doesn’t like it too spicy, and so we discarded most of the seeds. We think the more seeds you keep, the spicier.
They boil in a vinegar bath.
And then let them chill in the fridge for a bit.
We had some cucumbers and tomatoes from the farmers market. One tomato and three of these little cucumbers was the perfect amount to accompany about 1.5 cups of watermelon.
Chop up into 1/2 inch bits or so, and add the watermelon (the best way to cut a watermelon is explained here) and vinaigrette, which is just olive oil, champagne vinegar and some basil paste.
It’s supposed to have some feta atop, but we didn’t have any feta so skipped that step and it was still excellent.
Ingredients
- 2 jalapeno peppers
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons of water
- 1 large tomato, cut into chunks
- 1 cucumber, cut into chunks
- 1.5 cups of watermelon
- 1/4 cup feta cheese
- Basil or about 1/2 teaspoon of basil paste
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
Instructions
- Put water, vinegar and sugar in a pot. Boil and stir until sugar is dissolved.
- Lower heat to and simmer peppers for two minutes.
- Put in a bowl and chill in the vinegar mixture. If you can give it some time for the peppers to marinade, that’s best.
- Put tomatoes, cucumber and watermelon in a bowl. Add the pickled peppers with a fork (so as not to get too much of the vinegar mixture in it.
- Mix olive oil, vinegar and the basil paste in a separate bowl.
- Pour dressing over salad, stir, and crumble a little feta on top. (It’s important not to stir the cheese in with the salad because it gets soggy and kind of icky looking.)