WATERMELON SWEET PRESERVE

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Actually this is not a pure watermelon preserve, it's a preserve that is made from the watermelon's rind. Yes, you read well, it's made from the rind, not the inside red part :) If you think a little, you'll realize that the red part is very soft and full of water, almost impossible to prepare sweet preserve from it. No matter how weird it sounds, this preserve is very popular in Macedonia and in the Balkans, and it's delicious! Now, in summer period, it's the perfect period to prepare couple of jars of this tasty sweet. From this measurement, you'll get 4 large jars of watermelon preserve.
 Ingredients:
  • 3 kg of watermelon rind
  • 3 kg of sugar
  • 1 l water
  • 1 lemon cut in slices
Preparation:
  1. Wash and peel the watermelon.
  2. Cut the watermelon to slices and remove the middle red part to leave only the rind (with a very small red area). Cut the rind into small cubes.
  3. Pour water in a large pot and wait till it starts to boil. When the water starts to boil, add the watermelon rind cubes. Leave to boil for several minutes, then spill the water, remove the watermelon cubes, add fresh warm water, wait till it boils, then add the watermelon, and again leave to boil for a few minutes. This procedure is repeated 3 more times (5 times overall). The last time, spill the water and leave the watermelon cubes aside.
  4. Pour a liter of water in the pot and gradually add sugar with continuous stirring. When it starts to boil, leave to simmer for about 30 minutes. Then add the cubes and let it cook for about an hour or until the preserve thickens and gets a beautiful golden color. At half the cooking time, add the lemon cut into circles.
  5. When it cools completely the next day, pour into sterilized jars.

Tip: For 1 kg of watermelon rind you need 1 kg of sugar, and a kilogram of sugar needs about 350 ml of water. The watermelon cooking process will run much faster if you always have reserve hot water. While sweet is cooking, periodically check the density.