Granita: melon and lime with chilli

I don't love melon, but this is a flavour bomb

When London gets hit with a sticky heatwave, it’s serious. Which is when you need ice. We ran out of iced lollies at the weekend so I was forced to use up a melon that was lolling about in the fridge and make it into granita. Nobody loves melon that much in our house, so I whizzed it up with lime juice and elderflower cordial, froze it, and then served dusted with chilli/lime salt mix. Like a little glass of Mexican-style heaven to counter-attack a sweltering day. You don’t even need any kind of ice cream machine - just your freezer, a blender, a spoon and a container.

I have plans for you, melon friend:

You will need:

1 melon (mine was a Piel de Sapo melon from Sainsbury’s)
Juice of 2.5 limes
100ml elderflower cordial syrup (undiluted)
Chilli/lime/salt mix - I use the Tajin brand, available from anywhere selling Latin American foods

Remove the skin and pips from your melon and cut the flesh into chunks. In batches, blitz the flesh to a pulp in either a food processor or a Nutribullet. Stir in the lime juice and elderflower cordial, add more or less than the quantities stated, according to your taste. I used just enough elderflower cordial to add a hit of floral acid, but not to overwhelm the melon flavour. And enough lime juice to add tang, but not to be too sharp. Pour the mixture into a large plastic tub.

Whack it in the freezer for 2 hours, then take it out hourly and give it a good stir. It should go from slush to ‘snow’. Depending on the power in your freezer, this could take several more hours.

To serve, scrape the granita out with a scoop or spoon It should look a bit like shaved ice. Then dust it with chilli lime salt just before serving. The sweet/salt/chilli combo is SO GOOD.