This week we are soaking a melon in wine!
This is Drunken Melon!
AuthorRetroRuth
From Kentucky Cooking Cookbook By The Colonelettes Of Louisville, Kentucky, 1958
Tested!
[cooked-sharing]
Mighty fine eating for a summer breakfast! Tap melon the night before and remove seeds with a long-handled spoon. Fill with dry white wine. When cut, sprinkle with salt.
Ingredients
Directions
Mighty fine eating for a summer breakfast! Tap melon the night before and remove seeds with a long-handled spoon. Fill with dry white wine. When cut, sprinkle with salt.
Notes
This is another recipe chosen by our wonderful patrons over at Patreon! This week I would like to highlight our new patron, Marc, who came onboard Patreon as our first “Well Done” Patron! As Well Done, Marc gets swag, our appreciation and love, more swag, and also a video of questionable quality by Tom. If you want to check out Patreon and all of the fun we are having with voting, taste-testing videos, cook-alongs, digital cookbook libraries, and Tom’s weird humor, you can go here.
Since we just returned from a social-distancing vacation camping on my parent’s property in Up North Wisconsin (I am covered with 1000 mosquito bites and 1 bee sting), the patrons mercifully picked an easy recipe.
Also, one that is filled with alcohol. Because they love me.
For your information: I used Chardonnay in this melon, because it was what I had on hand. This cantaloupe held a little less than 2/3rds of this bottle of wine. I filled it up to the top of the melon rind.
In retrospect, I should have left a bit of melon on the top for a “plug”. I feel like the melon dried out a bit at the top.
It’s kind of hard to see the level in this picture, but it looks like the melon sucked up 1/4th of the wine I poured.
Full Disclosure: We did NOT eat this for breakfast. I am thinking that this was meant for a brunch or fancy breakfast, and not something you would eat alone in your PJs at your kitchen table at 4 am. Not that I thought about doing that. More than once. We ended up eating it after dinner because Tom had to work all day. And I had to watch my kids swim in their inflatable pool. I need to be on point for that.
“Whoa. That’s strong.”
“It is good?”
“I’m going to eat all of it.”
The Verdict: It Has Alcohol In It
From The Tasting Notes –
Was it good? Yes, it was. But it wasn’t great. The salt was very interesting, and you could definitely taste that there was alcohol in the melon while you were chewing it. But the wine I chose and the melon didn’t mesh together. You could taste the elements alternately in your mouth, which was strange. Overall, I think Chardonnay was the wrong choice for this melon. It really enhanced the oak flavor in the wine, and the wine poured out of the “wine-a-loupe” tasted like prunes. Which was odd. Looking back on it, I should have used a Riesling. But no worries, I am planning on trying this again, and maybe switching from cantaloupe to honeydew melon. I feel like this has really, really good potential.
I’ve had this! Did not makeit; it was on the buffet at a book launch. I hoovered up a lot – love melon + it was a heatwave – before realising (a) it was insanely potent cos they used vodka and (b) i was being a greedyguts. The catering geezer i chatted to said it had been an overnight soak.
That was fun! I can see it being quite good with Riesling. I wonder if it really needs salt, too? I know a lot of people put salt on melons, but I don’t care for it.
Tequila, salt and a ripe watermelon is an excellent variation of this recipe.
I can’t wait to try this with a pinot grigio!
If this is what the Colonelettes serve for breakfast, I’m kind of scared of what would appear on the dinner table.