After I discovered watermelon “tuna” poke, I’ve been making it a lot. The look and the texture of cooked watermelon resemble real tuna. One day I was eating watermelon “tuna” and thought it may work to replace meat.
When I was growing up, my mom made a dish with tomato, onion and thinly sliced pork. This dish was my mom’s random creation and not a Japanese dish. My brother and I loved this dish and asked our mom to make it especially when tomatoes were in season.
While tomatoes are in season, I thought I would recreate the dish by replacing pork with watermelon. That sounded crazy but it worked!
I know it doesn’t look like pork but eating cooked watermelon and avocado together somewhat making me feel like I’m eating soft cooked meat (or fish?).
I’ll show the step-by-step instructions here but the shorter version of the recipe and the list of the ingredients are available at the bottom of this post. Let’s begin!
- Slice tomatoes about 6-7 millimeter
2. Slice onion slightly thinner than tomatoes
3. Slice watermelon slightly thicker than tomatoes. Use the outer whiter part of watermelon. Remove seeds if any.
4. Put onion in a pot (a single layer) and sprinkle salt and pepper
5. Put tomatoes on top of onion (a single layer)
6. Put watermelon on top of tomato (a single layer)
7. Create another layer of tomato, onion and watermelon.
8. Close lid and turn on the stove at medium heat
9. Once boil, bring it to low to medium heat and cook until onion becomes translucent. Serve it with sliced avocado.
Because all of the ingredients are watery, you don’t need to add any liquid to cook. As you can see above, there will be a lot of juice coming out of tomato, onion and watermelon once it’s cooked.
The key to eat this dish is serving it with avocado.
Avocado adds fattiness to the dish and make it tastier! My mom used a non-vegan bouillon cube but I replaced it with dried shiitake to add my Japanese touch. :p You can use a vegan bouillon to substitute dried shiitake.
It’s refreshing and has a nice balance of flavor. Watermelon adds sweetness to the dish. It can be eaten warm but I like it chilled. It can be stored in the fridge for a few days, and you don’t need to warm it up to eat.
I hope you give a try!
- Equal part of
- -tomato
- -onion
- -watermelon
- Avocado (as much as you like)
- Few pieces dried shiitake mushrooms
- salt
- pepper
- Slice tomato about 6-7 milmitter thick
- Slice onion slightly thinner than tomato
- Slice watermelon slightly thicker than tomato
- Put onion in a pot (a single layer) and sprinkle salt and pepper
- Put tomato on top of onion (a single layer)
- Put watermelon on top of tomato (a single layer)
- Put all of dried shiitake mushrooms on top of watermelon. Use the outer whiter part of watermelon. Remove seeds if any.
- Create another layer of tomato, onion and watermelon
- Close lid and turn on the stove at medium heat
- Once boil, bring it to low to medium heat and cook until onion becomes translucent. Serve it with avocado
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