This is one of those salads where you won't really care if there's no meat or protein accompaniment, although you could likely still go that route or serve this as a side salad at your next barbecue.
Grilling watermelon has its distinct advantages over eating raw watermelon.
1) When you heat watermelon above the boiling point of water, you are evaporating some of the 92% water content in a watermelon, concentrating the sugar syrup solution to get a more intense watermelon flavor. 2) Watermelon flesh (along with most every other vegetable or fruit) contains pectin, a glue that holds cellulose together inside the cell structure of the plant. When you heat pectin beyond about 200°F, it does a few things: a) it breaks down and becomes a tacky emulsifier (good for getting salad dressings to stick together like oil and vinegar in this recipe) with an excellent mouthfeel and b) allows the cellulose to break suspension into a sugary syrup of simple sugars. 3) Sugars on the exterior of watermelon will undergo caramelization when exposed to high heat, much like the Maillard reaction on things like grilled chicken breast or steaks. The simple sugars that you release from the breakdown of cellulose form into much more complex and nutty flavored sugars. All of these processes take place more or less sequentially, and really without much intervention on your part. Pectin degradation is accelerated under non-aqueous environments (boiling off some of the water), as does caramelization, which is accelerated by all the excess sugar from cellulose breakdown. Look there are no quantities here. It's a salad, so you're going to measure with your heart. Everything is up to your discretion and tastes, just be sure to balance everything nicely, the acidic tomato, peppery arugula, the smoky, slightly nutty, and sweet watermelon, fresh crisp cucumber, salty goat cheese, and texture of the nuts. Shopping List (Salad):
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Prep (Salad):
Chop your veggies. What did you expect? It's a salad.
The Business:
Preheat your grill to its hottest temperature (or at least above 450 deg F). Take the watermelon planks, and give them a blot dry with paper towels and brush a little oil on the side that you're grilling first. Grill these for a few minutes or until just starting to blacken (this is the sign of caramelization). Take them off the grill and allow to cool slightly before chopping into bite sized cubes - the planks will likely have shrunk a decent amount. When assembling the salad, I'll let some of the syrup that forms to drip away as to not make soup, but some of this broken down pectin helps emulsify the dressing.
In a 225°F oven, toast your nut of choice until lightly toasted (10-15 minutes should do the trick). Give these a rough crush if you look like you have massive pieces. Or don't.
Otherwise, it's a salad. Assemble all of the ingredients in a bowl (or plate, I'm not going to judge) and eat it. I like to just drizzle with a simple balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing - remember, once tossed with the syrupy pectin, it'll make a wonderful dressing. Garnish with the mint, goat cheese, nuts, and flaky sea salt.
Enjoy!
Chop your veggies. What did you expect? It's a salad.
The Business:
Preheat your grill to its hottest temperature (or at least above 450 deg F). Take the watermelon planks, and give them a blot dry with paper towels and brush a little oil on the side that you're grilling first. Grill these for a few minutes or until just starting to blacken (this is the sign of caramelization). Take them off the grill and allow to cool slightly before chopping into bite sized cubes - the planks will likely have shrunk a decent amount. When assembling the salad, I'll let some of the syrup that forms to drip away as to not make soup, but some of this broken down pectin helps emulsify the dressing.
In a 225°F oven, toast your nut of choice until lightly toasted (10-15 minutes should do the trick). Give these a rough crush if you look like you have massive pieces. Or don't.
Otherwise, it's a salad. Assemble all of the ingredients in a bowl (or plate, I'm not going to judge) and eat it. I like to just drizzle with a simple balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing - remember, once tossed with the syrupy pectin, it'll make a wonderful dressing. Garnish with the mint, goat cheese, nuts, and flaky sea salt.
Enjoy!