This pickled watermelon recipe is soo good and is a naturally fermented food that is absolutely great and helps with building good bacteria in the gut. It makes a great side for many side dishes.
2mediumzucchinis/ courgettes cut into 4 chunks/halves/quarters
4medium carrots organic
Instructions
Gather all the ingredients and prepare them by washing, chopping, cutting, peeling, or whatever is needed. Have the jars ready too. No need to sterilize these but just a good hot water rinse.
Place a few celery stalks with leaves (if you chose to add these) at the bottom of each jar. Arrange the best you can the melon slices into the prepared jars, and push in between the melon slices some zucchini chunks and a few carrot chunks or sticks. Do this until all melon has been jarred.
Fill up all jars with water and then pour the water back out in a measuring jug. Hold the top watermelon pieces so that they do not fall out. We do this to know exactly how much water is needed for your batch and the amount of salt to add.
Once you know the water amount, add 1 tablespoon (25g /0.89oz) salt for each liter of water (see notes for more quantities) and mix until the salt has dissolved. Warm up the water if you wish the watermelon to pickle super fast.
Pour the water and salt back into the jars over the melon, add the remaining ingredients into each jar place the lid, and give each jar a little shake.
Place one jar into a nice and bright spot (into the sun) and the other(s) into a shadowy corner so they will get to pickle a little later. Remember to give these a shake once or twice a day making sure the lid is nice and tight and open the jars twice a day or leave the lid placed on top without tightening it. So, tighten the lid - shake 2-3 times - open it - place the lid back and leave it loose.
Check every day to see when you like them - the longer they will stay the more fermented and sour they will be. When it reaches the desired level of sourness, refrigerate and serve with your favorite dishes.
Notes
The number of jars needed depends very much on the jar's sizes and the size of the melon.
You will only need one or two small cloves of garlic per jar (for a 500 ml jar)
Add more carrot and zucchini to the last jar if you have less melon for it just to get it filled up.
Salt amount:
for 2 liters (67.63 fl.oz.) of water - 50g (1.77 oz) salt
for 1.5 liters (50.72 fl.oz.) of water - 37g (1.31 oz) salt
for 1 liter (33.81 fl.oz.) of water - 25.0g (0.89 oz) salt
for 0.5 liter (16.90 fl.oz.) of water - 12.5g (0.46 oz) salt
for 0.25 liter (8.45 fl.oz.) of water - 7g (0.22 oz) salt