Vodka Watermelon Granita To Chill With This Summer
Watermelon is delicious as a fruit, and so is ice. If you're the kind that likes to crunch on them, add vodka to these two and you have a sublime cooling Italian creation. Traditionally granita is a great cooling snack quite popular at breakfast but eaten at other times of the day as usual. But when vodka meets this Sicilian creation, it gets shifted to the after-hours and is great to have post meals, especially brunch or lunch when the heat is almost stifling. What better than to get your belly’s worth of watermelon and ice, punched with vodka?
Watermelon is messy to cut and prepare, but it's a delicious and hydrating fruit. All you need for this recipe is cut into a watermelon, extract the red flesh inside, and deseed it to be used for the granita. Crushed ice forms the base that gives this dessert the structure.
What exactly is granita?
It's a semi-frozen dessert that calls for crushed ice, fruit, sugar, and a liquid that this recipe calls for—vodka. Funnily, granita employs a freezing technique that the Arabs introduced to the country during their rule in the 9th century. The nobility and elite were drinking something called sherbet and several years down the line, this evolved to give rise to the summer favourite called granita. The sherbet was made by freezing fruit juices, ice and sugar that led to the creation of a dessert with a unique texture. The Italians improvised and replaced the juice with local flavours like lemon and coffee and kept the granular consistency of the dessert that gave rise to granita.
You need to get the proportions right even if you're not using watermelon and replacing it with any other juicy fruit like muskmelon or strawberry. lemons. You can also add thyme or basil to add a touch of herbal note to an otherwise fruity dessert. For this recipe, we will go with mint.
Vodka Watermelon Granita Recipe
Remove the pulp from the watermelon, deseed the fruit, and juice them in a blender. Next, chop up mint leaves. Add the juice, mint, and vodka to a mixing bowl or a baking tray. Mix well making sure there’s adequate space on the top for the mixture when it freezes and expands. This mixture needs approximately one to two to freeze. Once the granita freezes, the fun part begins, you need to scrape the frozen mixture with a fork for the “shavings”. Once you have enough to fill a glass or bowl, spoon it off into the serving container and garnish with mint. We’ll add syrup to sweeten this granite for a more delicious dessert.
Ingredients
Method
Puree the watermelon cubes in a blender until smooth.
Strain the pulpy liquid through a sieve to remove any pulp and seeds (if you haven't deseeded), pressing down to extract as much juice and pulp as possible. Discard any solids.
Mix the watermelon juice, vodka, lime juice, and lime syrup in a bowl until combined.
Pour the mixture into a shallow metal pan or baking dish. Place in the freezer for 1-2 hours, stirring and scraping with a fork every 30 minutes, until completely frozen and flaky.
To serve, scrape granita with a fork to break up the icy flakes. Place the desired amount in chilled glasses or bowls. Serve with chopped mint leaves.
