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Dessert

Sweetmeat Preserves

Preserves made from watermelon rind, boiled with ginger, mace, sugar, and alum, then repeatedly boiled until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,152 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Sweetmeat Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Cut the rind into desired shapes.

  2. Soak the rind in brine until ready to make preserves.

  3. Dissolve alum in 1 gallon of water.

  4. Lay the rind in the alum solution, covered with grape or cabbage leaves.

  5. Simmer until the rind turns a pretty green.

  6. Soak the rind in soft water to remove alum.

Make the syrup

  1. Pour boiling water over the ginger.

  2. Let the ginger sit until soft enough to slice.

  3. Boil the ginger in ½ gallon of water for 1 hour.

  4. Add mace and 2 pounds of sugar to the ginger.

  5. Boil the rind gently in the syrup for 30 minutes.

  6. Add water to keep the rind covered.

  7. Set the kettle aside for 4 days.

Finish the preserves

  1. Boil again, adding 2 pounds of sugar and more water if needed.

  2. Repeat boiling 6 or 7 times until the syrup is rich and thick enough to cover the rind.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Grape + gingertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Grape + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Watermelon rind
Forms the firm, sliceable body of the preserves that holds its shape in syrup.
Alum
Firms the rind's texture so it stays crisp through long boiling.
Sugar
Sweetens and, as the syrup thickens over repeated boils, preserves the rind.
White ginger
Adds a sharp, aromatic bite that flavours the syrup.

The step that matters

Removing the alum by soaking in soft water. Alum left in the rind can make it bitter and harsh, so it must be soaked out in soft water before the rind goes into the sugar syrup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, grape, ginger, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, grape, ginger, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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