Watermelon and Cucumber Stacks

There was still lots of pickled watermelon rind left from last week's canapé, despite having added it to salads this week, so here is another recipe using this lovely little pickle. These stacks are fresh and flavourful, very easy to make and keep beautifully for several hours.

Ingredients - can make loads, depending on how long you keep cutting the circles.

1 watermelon, preferably the unseeded variety

1 cucumber

1 pack mini Mozzarella cherries - from Waitrose, but they should be easy to find in most supermarkets

Pickled watermelon rind (see method)

Ingredients for the pickled watermelon

200g watermelon rind (see method)

150ml water

50g caster sugar

60ml white wine vinegar

2 tsp salt

Pinch dry chilli flakes

1 green chilli

Method

To make the pickled watermelon:

Peel the dark green rind off the watermelon and discard, leaving the white part with a thin layer of pink watermelon flesh still attached.

Cut these prepared pieces of watermelon rind into squares, about 1.5cm x 1.5cm.

Bring the water, vinegar, sugar, salt and chilli flakes to the boil and simmer until the sugar has dissolved. Add the prepared rind and bring back to the boil.

Remove from the heat, cover and allow to cool. The watermelon rind is now ready to use, but can be kept, covered, in the fridge for a week or so

To complete the stacks:

Cut out circles of watermelon (mine were 2.5cm in diameter and 1cm thick).

Peel the cucumber and cut lengthwise 1cm thick slices, discard the very seeded parts. Then cut similar sized circles to fit on top of the watermelon.

Slice the mozzarella cherries to get about 4 slices out of each (discarding the top and bottom part of the cherry if it is too small).

Put one piece of cucumber on top of a watermelon circle, followed by a circle of mozzarella.

Dice some pickled watermelon rind and sprinkle on top of each stack. Make sure there are both pink(watermelon flesh) and yellow (watermelon rind) cubes on each. Sprinkle with a little salt.

These will keep several hours, covered, in the fridge. A bamboo stick in each one makes them easier to pick up (but was not very photogenic).