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Daily Dish

Watermelon shaved ice with salt and pepper

By Betty HallockDeputy Food Editor 
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In summer, you can never have too much watermelon or too much granita. So a recipe for watermelon shaved ice with salt and pepper from former Jean Georges pastry chef Pichet Ong’s new book, ‘The Sweet Spot,’ was too good to resist. It’s frozen watermelon juice spiked with lime zest and salt and pepper. The perfect palate cleanser -- sweet and salty, fruity and icy.

And it’s really easy to make: Put a quarter-cup of sugar in a saucepan with a quarter-cup of water, bring it to a boil and cook until the sugar is dissolved, then cool. Remove the rind from a 3-pound watermelon and cut the fruit into chunks. Purée the chunks with the cooled sugar syrup in a blender, then strain and pour it into a large, wide glass dish. Sprinkle lime zest on top, cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the freezer. Stir and break up the ice crystals with a fork every 45 minutes. When completely frozen, stir in a teaspoon of fleur de sel and a half-teaspoon of pepper. Serve immediately.

-- Betty Hallock

Photos by Betty Hallock

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Daily Dish
Betty Hallock

Betty Hallock is deputy Food editor at the Los Angeles Times. She has co-written four cookbooks, including “Bäco: Vivid Recipes from the Heart of Los Angeles,” “Amá: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen” and “Baking at République.” She started her journalism career at the Wall Street Journal and Scientific American in New York, worked on the L.A. Times’ Business desk, and was interim food editor at Los Angeles Magazine. Hallock also helped launch a food and nutrition vertical for wellness app RoundGlass. She’s a graduate of UCLA and New York University.

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