Recipe: Watermelon Ginger Sorbet and Granita

Summary: Ginger Watermelon Sorbet or Granita is one of the easiest and most refreshing desserts of Summer or any season. You can make the sorbet in your ice cream maker or make a simple granita using a casserole dish, your freezer and a fork. Or you can just add ice and make a super refreshing slushy in the blender.

Ingredients

  • Watermelon – roughly half a watermelon or so, cubed into 1-inch cubes including a little of the white portion of rind.
  • Lemon – juice of 1 whole lemon
  • Sugar – 1/4 to 2/3 of a cup depending on your sweettooth
  • Fresh Ginger – 1 teaspoon peeled freshly grated ginger including juice.

Instructions

  1. This recipe is easily adaptable to your taste preferences and is very forgiving. All you need is Watermelon, Lemon, Fresh Ginger and sugar. Start with enough watermelon chunks to fill up your blender (usually about 1/2 of a good sized watermelon). I cut the watermelon into fourths and this slice out all of the ripe watermelon, and even a little of the white rind, into chunks. Fill up your blender to the top with the watermelon chunks.
  2. Add the juice of 1 lemon. Add sugar to taste – 1/4 cup to 2/3 of a cup is a good starting point depending on how sweet your watermelon is and your sweet tooth – the sugar can also be omitted if you want to reduce the calories.
  3. Now this is the part that elevates this from a run of the mill watermelon sorbet. Take fresh ginger – peel it and grate roughly 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of ginger including the juice (add more if you like the zing that Ginger adds). Add the grated Ginger to blender and blend vigorously for 5 minutes or more. The long blending time incorporates air into the liquid making for a smoother textured final product.
  4. Now taste – don’t be tempted to add more ginger the first time you make it – once frozen, the ginger flavor becomes more concentrated and more noticeable.
  5. For Sorbet – Transfer to your ice cream and freeze according to directions. Enjoy.
  6. For Granita– This requires no special equipment beyond a blender and your freezer. Pour blended mixture into a wide shallow casserole dish so that the liquid is no deeper than 1-inch. Put into the freezer and stir with a fork every 30 minutes folding the frozen parts into the unfrozen parts. Repeat this process until frozen. This usually takes me between 2-3 hours, but your mileage may vary. Either serve immediately or transfer to another container with lid. Works equally well as a dessert, an amuse bouche or an intermezzo.
  7. For Slushies – Add ice and blend until the desired thickness is reached. Garnish with a fresh mint sprig if available. Experiment often and let me know what works best for you. -Thom

Cooking time (duration): 10

Diet type: Vegetarian

Diet (other): Raw

Meal type: dessert

Culinary tradition: USA (Nouveau)

My rating:4.0 stars
****

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Ginger Watermelon Sorbet, Granita and slushy
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