Watermelon blended into juice in five minutes. On the Colombian coast the fruit is called patilla and inland it is sandía, and the juice is the same either way.
Go easy on the water
The ingredient list says water to taste and that is doing a lot of work, because the honest answer is often none at all.
Watermelon is roughly nine tenths water already. Two cups of chopped fruit blended on its own gives a full glass of juice with body and a clear taste of the fruit. Add a cup of water to that and you have diluted the only flavour in the drink by a third.
Start with the fruit alone, blend it, and then add water a splash at a time if you want more of it. You cannot take it back out.
Thirty seconds and no more
Long enough to break the flesh down completely, short enough that the blender has not started whipping air into it.
Over-blended watermelon juice goes pale pink and grows a foam on top that separates within minutes. Thirty seconds is all it takes with ripe fruit, which is soft enough to be barely more than pulp already.
The seeds are the only real decision
Blended black seeds leave a faint bitter edge through the juice. It is not dramatic, but it is there, and it is the difference between a juice that tastes clean and one that does not.
The recipe's own suggestion is the easiest fix: blend everything and then push the juice through a strainer, pressing the pulp with the back of a spoon so only the seeds stay behind.
The small white seeds in a younger melon are soft and can be ignored.
Patilla or sandía
Both words mean watermelon in Spanish and Colombia uses both, depending on where you are.
On the Caribbean coast, and across the border in Venezuela, it is patilla. Inland, in Bogotá and the interior, it is sandía, which is the general Spanish word.
Nothing about the fruit or the juice changes. It is only the name, and this page carries both because people search for both.
More juices
- Mango juice — the same method.
- Orange juice — blended, not squeezed.
- Guava juice — this one has to be strained.
- Colombian limonada — with the whole lime.
Watermelon Juice FAQ
Start with none. Watermelon is already almost entirely liquid, and water added on top of that gives a juice that tastes of very little. Add it at the end if you want more volume.
The black ones, yes. A blender shatters them and they leave a faint bitterness through the whole jug. The white immature seeds are soft and do not matter.
Push the blended juice through a strainer with the back of a spoon. Picking them out of the flesh first works too and is more tedious.
Both are Spanish for watermelon and both are Colombian. Patilla is what it is called on the Caribbean coast and in Venezuela; sandía is the inland and general Spanish word.
Taste first. A watermelon picked ripe is sweet enough on its own, and sugar in an already sweet juice flattens it.
A yellow patch where it sat on the ground, a hollow sound when you knock it, and a weight that feels heavy for its size.
It separates within an hour and the flavour dulls. This is a juice to blend and drink.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups watermelon (chopped, seeds picked out)
- Sugar to taste (ripe watermelon usually needs none)
- Water to taste (the fruit is mostly water already)
Notas
Instructions
- Put the watermelon, the sugar and the water in the blender jug.
- Blend for about 30 seconds. Longer whips air in and the juice turns pale and foamy.
- Serve over ice.
Comments
No Comments