Recipe

Tomato and Watermelon Salad

A cut watermelon on the black table with kale, sweet peppers, basil, cherry tomatoes and jalapenos

Cold watermelon, room-temperature heirlooms, sheep milk feta, and a choice of two vinaigrettes.

Serves
4
Time
15 minutes prep, serve immediately

Ingredients

  • 3 cups seedless watermelon, cut into 1 inch cubes, chilled
  • 1.5 lbs heirloom tomatoes, cut into bite-sized cubes or wedges, at room temperature
  • 1/2 cup sheep's milk feta, broken into rustic chunks
  • 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, hand-torn
  • 2 tbsp fresh mint leaves, torn
  • Flaky Maldon sea salt and coarse black pepper

Vinaigrette one, nutty balsamic and sherry:

  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tbsp sherry vinegar
  • 1 tsp aged balsamic
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/3 cup toasted chopped cashews

Vinaigrette two, zesty serrano and lime:

  • 2.5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1.5 tbsp fresh lime juice
  • 1 serrano pepper, diced
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 firm avocado, diced

Method

  1. Prep and drain. Cube the watermelon and set it in a colander over a bowl in the fridge for 15 minutes. Keep the cut tomatoes in a nonreactive bowl at room temperature.
  2. Emulsify. Whisk your chosen oil, acid, garlic, salt, pepper and chili together.
  3. Assemble and serve. Combine the drained cold watermelon and the room-temperature tomatoes in the nonreactive bowl. Drizzle three quarters of the dressing over and fold gently. Transfer to a platter and top with the feta, mint, basil, and either the cashews or the diced avocado. Serve immediately.
The culinary why

Drain the melon in the fridge. Watermelon cell walls bleed the moment you cut them. Fifteen minutes in a colander sheds the surface juice so the vinaigrette clings to the fruit instead of sliding off it into a pink pool.

Two temperatures on purpose. Ice-cold watermelon keeps its cell walls rigid and its crunch. Room-temperature tomatoes keep the volatile aromatic compounds that refrigeration destroys. The contrast is the dish.

Break the feta by hand. Pre-crumbled feta turns to a muddy paste the moment it is tossed. Hand-broken brine-packed sheep's milk feta gives you distinct bursts of salt against the sweet fruit.

From the garden

Each year is different on the farm. Whether it is new equipment and tools or tweaks on the crop selection or systems approach, things are constantly changing, but nothing more so than the weather.

The one thing that is constant is change, and adapting to that change is about all a farmer can do.

My peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes did horribly in the cool, wet start to the spring, so I planted more beets and carrots. I am hoping to have a late summer crop of tomatoes, watermelon, beans, corn and cucumbers, but I always have to remember to keep enough space available for early fall plantings of all the cool season root veggies and greens.

The good news is that a poor spring can still be a great fall, as far as production goes, and if I time my plantings right and the weather is favorable the winter could be just as productive. And of course, next spring could be my best on record.

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