Request the recipe and she shrugs, “After so many years of feeding your loved ones, cooking becomes instinctive. Equal parts sweet and sour, just like most Gujarati cuisine, you add mustard seeds to hot oil and let crackle. Follow this quickly with a pinch of asafoetida, one-half dry red chilli, jaggery and kokam according to taste. Then add the carefully-peeled white part of the watermelon rind. Add around a cup-and-a-half of water, followed by salt and red chilli powder as per taste. Season with fresh coriander and jeera powder, and cook further for five to seven minutes or until the peel softens. Keep a thick gravy-like consistency so that you have with roti and skip making dal. It’s quick and simple. I think it goes best with wheat roti because when growing up, I used to have it with bajra [pearl millet] ki roti, and I didn’t like it much. A glass of cold buttermilk completes the meal. Both watermelon and buttermilk have a cooling effect on the body on hot summer days. In some homes, muskmelon rind [white] is used to make a sabzi as it has the same texture of watermelon rind.”

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Shah warns that the taste of this vegetable can take some time to get used to, more so because of its sweet and sour taste, and soft texture.  Also because our minds are conditioned to throw away the rind. “As an ingrained habit, Gujaratis are known to make sure that food doesn’t go to waste; it’s  only later that we discovered its nutritional benefits,” she smiles. 

More recently, we see watermelon rind also star in salads and cocktails, giving both, interesting taste and texture. With a good dose of Vitamins K and B12, rich fibre and proven to boost workout and regular blood pressure traits—what’s not to like we ask?