Watermelon Carpaccio With Labneh
Imagine creamy labneh. Now imagine fresh watermelon, tangy pickled watermelon rinds, and salty preserved lemons. Perfect for summer.
Servings 4
Equipment
- cheese cloth
Ingredients
Labneh:
- 1 kg yogurt 10% fat
- 10-15 g salt depending on how salty you like it
Salad:
- 1/4 watermelon
- A few sprigs of mint
- Red and/or green chili sliced thin
- Peel of 1 preserved lemon if you can't find any, you can cut the peel of a lemon and cook it for 10 minutes in very salty water.
- 25 g white wine vinegar
- 25 g white balsamic vinegar
- 20 g Raki/Ouzo/Arak/Pastis
- 1 lime zest, and juice
- 70 g olive oil
- 10 g fine salt
- Flaky salt
Instructions
Labneh:
- In a bowl, whisk the salt and yogurt together. Transfer into a cheesecloth, tie up with yarn or thin wire and hang in the fridge over a bowl for at least 24 hours. Don't throw away the water/whey for bread baking or smoothies)
- You have now made labneh. It's that easy :)
- You only need about a third for the recipe but trust us; you want to make this much. You can use it for a million things.
Watermelon:
- First, carefully peel just the outer dark green peel of the watermelon and discard. Then cut off the white part with a tiny bit of red and dice.
- Mix the vinegars, raki, lime juice and zest, fine salt, and olive oil.
- Cover the watermelon rind cubies with the vinegar mix. Let it marinate for at least 20 minutes.
- Slice the red part of the watermelon very, very thin, ideally with a mandolin.
- To plate, spread the labneh on a large plate, as you would spread hummus.
- Arrange the watermelon slices on top. Then the pickled watermelon rind. You want about one piece for every bite. Drizzle some of the pickling liquid. Add mint leaves, chili, preserved lemon. Sprinkle some flaky salt and olive oil (of course). Eat. Repeat.