Prosciutto Melon Granita | Frozen Italian Dessert | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with puto melon granita. That's right. I wanted to create a frozen dessert that tasted like puto wrap melon, which we can do by simply sprinkling some puto over the top. I mean, we'll do that, too, but we're also going to infuse puto flavor into the melon granita. And I thought the results were absolutely mind-blowing. And to get started, we'll come swinging in with some sliced puto and we'll transfer it into a dry pan set over medium heat. And while that comes up to temperature and starts to sizzle, we'll kind of separate it with our tongs. And we'll pull that apart into a nice even layer. And what we'll do is cook this until the fat starts to render out. And these pieces start to very lightly brown. But we do not want to go too far. So, what we'll do on our pudo starts to look something like this is pull out 2/3 of it and transfer that onto a plate, and that's the part we'll reserve and use when we make the melon granita. And then we'll leave a third of it in the pan, which we'll cook for another minute or so, just to render out some additional fat and brown it up a little more. Since, as you'll see, we'll use this portion to make the candy pudo bits for the top. So once it gets to this point, we'll turn off the heat and we'll go ahead and transfer that onto a paper towel line plate. Oh, and you see that fat in the pan, do not under any circumstances wipe that out. All right, just leave that on the stove as is. And what we'll do is let that cool down to room temp. And I'll show you later in the video how we're going to candy that to make an incredible topping for our finished grrenita. And to start that, we will take the melon of our choice and we'll start scooping that into a bowl. And I decide to use honeydew. But as long as it's sweet and ripe, anything will work. So you pick. I mean, you are after all the Helen Mirin of melon percurin. But no matter which you use, we'll need to scoop out exactly 2 lbs into a bowl, which is why the bowls on a scale. And once we have that weigh out, we will grab our blender and we'll transfer in eight ounces, which is easy to get exact if you're watching the scale countdown. And if you're just doing it by eye, take out about a quarter. And then what we'll do is transfer in the puto we reserved earlier, right? The two-thirds of it that we took out of the pan first. And we'll also toss in a nice splash of cold fresh water. And then we'll head to the blender and puree this on high speed to produce one of the worst looking smoothies ever. And then what we'll do is transfer that into the pan we cooked our puto. And we'll also rinse out the blender with about 1/4 cup of water. And we will add that in as well. And then the last two ingredients will include a pinch of salt, followed by some white sugar, but not too much because our melon's already sweet. And we will turn our heat on to medium high. And we will bring this up to a simmer. At which point we'll lower our heat to medium low. And we'll let this simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, during which time this mixture is going to be infused with the puto. And I know that is not very pleasant to look at. and completely unappetizing. But hang tight because after simmering for about 15 minutes, somehow someway, it even looks worse. I mean, if I ever produce a horror movie, that is going to be the color of the psycho's house. But anyway, once our mixer is cooked for 15 minutes and it looks like this, we will pass that through a strainer into a bowl since all we want is the liquid. And we'll discard any puto sludge left behind. And then, very important, we will let this mixture sit and cool down to room temp since I don't want to add fresh melon to this when it's hot since that will affect the flavor. And that's it. Once that's cooled down, we'll take the rest of our melon and we will liquefy that in our blender on high speed and we'll go ahead and pour that in. And we'll give it a quick stir and check out the color that's produced, which does not look like any melon I would want to eat. So, I highly recommend we grab some gel style green food coloring. And we whisk in a drop or two. And by the way, when you're going to color a granita, if you just put in a little bit like this, cuz you think that looks like melon, it's going to be way, way too light when we're finished with the forking step. So, we actually need to add enough food coloring so it's twice as dark as we want it to be in the final product. And once that's been mixed in, we'll transfer that into a casserole dish or some other kind of similar container. And I know you're concerned. Since this does look much more like Irish Spring than summer melon, but you'll see what happens. It's going to be fine. And that's it. I went ahead and covered that and popped it in the freezer for 1 hour, at which point I pulled it out and I grabbed a fork. And what we'll do for this first forking is just kind of push that slightly frozen stuff away from the edges into the center. And we'll just break up those slushy bits and stir everything together. Oh, and I should mention you don't have to cover it. And all this will happen faster if it's not covered. Okay, I knew I couldn't get to it for about an hour, so I didn't want it to go too fast. And for the rest of the process, I'm not going to cover it till it gets where I want. And what we'll do is pop that back in for another 30 to 45 minutes. And then we'll repeat the exact same procedure. We'll take our fork and mix the frozen stuff from the outside into the unfrozen slushy stuff in the middle. And each time we do this, it's going to become more frozen and more granita like. And after doing that like three or four times, we'll eventually end up with something that looks like this, which is sort of like grainy wet snow. And once it does get to this point, since we're probably making this ahead of time, we can wrap it and pop it in the freezer until we're ready to serve, which for me was the next day. And once we are finally ready to enjoy this, we'll give it the final forking. And exactly how fine or coarse a texture you achieve is going to be up to you. Okay. If you take your time and use a light touch, you'll get beautifully small crystals, which personally is the texture I prefer. Oh, and I should mention you could just skip all the previous forking and just pour the mixture in and let it freeze solid and then just scrape it once at this point. But having said that, I do think the texture is better if you give it those forkings while it freezes. And that's it. Once we're finally happy with how that's been forked, we'll go ahead and grab a spoon since our puto melon granita is ready to enjoy. And that, my friends, really was shockingly good. Right. This tastes exactly, and I mean exactly, like a really cold pudo wrap piece of melon, except we're enjoying those flavors and something that has a texture of a snow cone. I mean, it really was perfect, but it could be more perfect since what we'll do to make a topping is chop up that reserved puto and we'll toss it in a pan set over medium heat and sprinkle over a teaspoon of sugar. And we will cook that stirring until the sugar disappears and those pieces of puto start to turn a little bit shiny which is from both the fat being warmed up and rendered out again. And also that sugar is melted and caramelized to the surface. And once it's looking like this, we'll turn off the heat and we'll grab a plate and we'll transfer it on and let it cool. And if everything's gone according to plan, about 10 or 15 minutes later, our candy pudo should sound like this. Oh yeah, you can hear how crispy those are going to be. And once that's set, we can proceed to serve this up properly. And while I wasn't kidding that this was perfect before, when you top it with these salty, sweet, crispy bits, it becomes even more perfect. And I cannot think of a better, more beautiful, more refreshing late summer treat than this. Although it certainly doesn't have to be late summer since you can buy honeydews all year round. But no matter when you make it, if you enjoy things that straddle that line between sweet and savory and you're a fan of puto wrap melon, I really do think this is going to blow your mind as well. Which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. and is always in joy.