Watermelon Salad for Summer

Kirk is back with exciting tales about people, places, and food in China – Cathy is still eating and posting — and ed (from Yuma) just wants to share a salad with all of you.

This year, Tina has been growing herbs, which is a great thing because those fresh herbs come in very handy.  However, she recently was complaining about all the mint she'd grown.  In fact, when we harvested some of her crop (both regular and chocolate mint), the pile looked like this:
A pile this huge was well beyond the amount of mint that can be consumed easily in mint juleps (I don't even want to imagine).  So what to do? As fate would have it, right after she was laminting about her abundant harvest, I noticed that watermelons were on sale in town.  Problem solved.

One of my favorite dishes this time of year, as Yuma heats up, is watermelon salad. As usual, I began by juicing some limes — in this case, about seven or eight key limes total:
 I then sliced up half of a red onion that I had in my refrigerator:
I then combined the sliced onion with the lime juice in a sealable baggie and stored the mixture overnight in my refrigerator.

The next day, the onion slices had a nice sour tang, and they and the lime juice were both pretty and pink:

 
I then cut open a mini seedless watermelon:
After cutting the flesh off of the rinds and chopping it up, I had a bowl of sweet watermelon chunks:
 
Since I was preparing the salad over at Tina's place, I also had a good loyal friend in the kitchen, Tina's dog Lucy:

Unable to speak English, Lucy communicates telepathically and was saying, "What you making?  How much does the dog get?  You know the dog is hungry, don't you?  And you just said the dog was a good dog.  The dog loves watching you make food.  Did I mention I was a good dog?  And a hungry dog?  And a hopeful dog?" Sometimes dogs have very little to do except watch and hope.

So, after giving Lucy a couple of watermelon chunks, I then coarsely chopped up that huge pile of mint leaves:  

 
I put the chopped mint, the onion slices, and about a cup (?) of crumbled feta cheese (basically what I had left in a package in the refrigerator) on top of the watermelon pieces:

Next, I poured extra virgin olive oil and some of the leftover pink lime juice on top of the mixture and stirred everything up together.  I tasted it to see if more lime juice or olive oil was needed and adjusted the balance of ingredients. The salad ended up looking like this: 

 Here's a close-up:
For me, this is a perfect hot weather salad.  The sweetness of the watermelon, which should be the star of the show, is balanced by the tart and crunchy onion slices.  The abundant mint adds a wonderful summertime flavor note.  The feta cheese provides a color contrast and a slight saltiness to the overall dish.  Watermelon salad makes an excellent lunch by itself, but it also complements a wide range of foods (hint: try with smoked paprika paella). I made at least 6 servings with this recipe.

This salad can also be made with strongly flavored pitted olives — such as Kalamatas — alongside or in place of the feta cheese.  I have also used chopped Italian parsley to augment the mint, but there was no need to do so with all  of Tina's mint. Fresh ground black pepper would not be out of place on the salad either.

In any case, try this, and I think you will like it. We do!

Watermelon Salad

1 baby seedless watermelon
juice from 6-8 key limes
half a small red onion, sliced
A pile of chopped mint
feta cheese (and/or) pitted olives
olive oil