Over the years, I've run into a few things that weren't immediately-obvious to me.
One of the big ones was eating pomegranates by opening them underwater. For those not familiar, pomegranates have a lot of red seeds and white husk between them:
Cutting a pomegranate or even opening a pomegranate tends to burst at least some seeds. The seeds are sticky and stain and tend to spray juice when pierced.
However, if you just cut through the outer hull of the fruit, then open it by hand underwater in a bowl of water, any juice that would have sprayed out is just grabbed by the water. Even better, the (inedible) white husk floats, so it self-separates instead of sticking to everything.
Today, I decided to try eating a watermelon with a spoon. In the past, that's tended to also make things spray, so I tried a grapefruit spoon, one with serrations that runs down the side. And that works great -- the spoon is like a knife, can go more-cleanly through the watermelon than a regular spoon, and still lets you scoop up the watermelon.
Any other neat tips that might be unorthodox or that people might not have tried or know about?
Watermelon rinds and citrus peels are perfectly edible and tasty once candied, so don't waste them. If you're into booze, dump the citrus peels into vodka, wait a month, then mix the vodka half-and-half with syrup. (I know that this is technically not a food eating trick, but still - waste not, want not.)
this makes so much sense. I mean you can do it with water to but it won't be able to stew as long.
I think that you answered the wrong comment, but... who cares?
Stew eating trick: with a bowl and enough bread, spoon is fluff.
mine shows me responding to the rind in alcohol one? oh oh scratch that. I did not mean stew as in the meal. I meant stew as in the process. like let that stew. so I meant in alcohol you can leave the rind in for I think forever but if you do it with water its only good to flavor it for the day.
Ah, now I got what you meant! My bad.
I guess that you could use the rinds to flavour some water, too. There are a few problems though - as you said it would be short-lived, and the taste would be subtler (essential oils dissolve better in alcohol), and you'd probably need to heat the water up (so it isn't a simple "dump it there and forget about it").
You can also bake an entire lemon, peel, pith and all and it comes out sweet and tender. Wrap it tightly in foil so none of the juice escapes then bake until the whole thing is soft. It cooks well on the side of a BBQ too. Goes well with ice-cream.
Fuck, that sounds too amazing to not try. Thanks for the idea! I'll try it the next Sunday, as I'm planning pork knuckles for lunch. (I'd try it today but I'm preparing Zebu hump so it doesn't combo that well.)