Juicy, sweet and delicious watermelon is one of the most favorite fruits around the world. However, not a lot of people know that tiny black watermelon seeds aren’t useless. After being dried and toasted, these seeds become a great snack containing high level of protid, glucid, lipid, vitamin B1, B2, E, PP, calcium, iron, zinc, phosphoric, selenium. Especially, symbolizing for richness and luckiness, Toasted Watermelon Seeds or Hat Dua has been a must food at Tet festival in Vietnam for a long time. People eating some Toasted Watermelon Seeds, sipping tea while talking together is a familiar image on Vietnamese Lunar New Year.
Following is the traditional process of making Hat Dua in Vietnam. Type of watermelon which has a lot of seeds are chosen to grow for harvesting watermelon seeds. When watermelons are ripe, farmers cut them into half, quarters and dry them under the sun for about 48 hours. After being dried, seeds could be easily separated from the flesh by rubbing flesh with seeds on a basket. Received seeds are dried under the sun for about 24 hours, soaked in water for about 1 hour to remove dirt and shriveled ones, then dried again for 5 hours until completely dry. The last step is toasting dried seeds in a big pan. Natural food coloring (red or black), salt, oil could be add while toasting to make the products red/black, salty, greasy and shining. To eat, dinner must peel the seed coat and enjoy the embryo which tastes crispy, buttery and smell wonderful. It is so delicious that it can make dinner eat more and more. Most of Vietnamese people are experts at eating Toasted Watermelon Seeds while some foreigners probably find it hard to do. Watermelon seed is tiny and its coat is hard so that this kind of seed seems to be an inconvenience that get in the way of tasting its flesh.
Here is the tip:
- Place the small end of watermelon seed between your front teeth and break the coat using the teeth;
- Continue to bite along the join until halfway down the seed;
- Remove the coat and eat the embryo (inside part of the seed);
You might like this:
Special Foods for Tet Celebrations in Vietnam
Tet Holiday in Vietnam
