Watermelon salad and Christmas smells

When I was younger my brothers and cousins used to have competitions to see who could spit their watermelon seeds the furthest. We’d line up on Nan and Pop’s balcony in Nambucca, still in our swimmers from the morning’s beach adventures, and launch the tiny little black rockets towards a particularly large gum tree about 100 metres away.

Christmas day was never far away when these competitions took place. The house would be full of delicious Christmas smells; salt-laden-seaside air, cherries, ham, tea, and tinsel.

I was once told that watermelon should be avoided because it has a very high glycaemic index; clearly this person did not understand how loaded with memory each bite of watermelon was for me!

Watermelon tastes of Summer. Each trickle of juice that escapes down past the wrist is a glorious reminder of childhood. I love that watermelon is such a simple delight, and I also love how uncomplicatedly this salad pairs its flavours.

While this dish may confuse people slightly (The Boy was heard to remark “is this a fruit salad or what?!”), these flavours complement one another to perfectly that your guests will be wowed into submission. It may be a bit of a hard sell to get it on their plate, but it’s worth it!

Salad:

• 700g watermelon flesh
• 150g feta
• 1 cup finely chopped mint leaves
• 2 spring onions
• 1 Lebanese cucumber
• 80g  walnuts

Dressing:

• ¼ cup light olive oil
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• Salt and pepper

Cube your watermelon and feta. Aim to cube the watermelon slightly larger than the feta, just so there is some variation in size in the salad. Toss the cubes into the bowl. Finely slice your mint leaves then chop the spring onions and add them both to the bowl.

Take your cucumber and use a vegetable peeler to make cucumber ribbons. Peel straight into the bowl so that there’s less cleaning up.

Grab your walnuts and break them unevenly into the bowl. I really like walnuts, so I broke some in half and kept others whole.

The watermelon is so juicy that it should dress the salad as you’re tossing it – this means that the salad has a lovely, sweet, delicate dressing without any extra effort. If, however, you don’t fancy a slightly under-dressed salad, combine ¼ cup olive oil, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp brown sugar and salt and pepper to add a bit of extra zestiness to the salad.

I also garnished with a few basil leaves because my basil plant is doing swimmingly.

*tea towel pictured above is from the gorgeous Aqua Door Designs, check them out here.