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Dessert

Washington Citron Melon Sweetmeats

Preserved sweetmeats made from citron melons, boiled with alum and sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Melon and sugar work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 796 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Washington Citron Melon Sweetmeats

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melons

  1. Pare the citron melons and cut them into desired shapes.

  2. Place the melons in a preserving kettle and cover with cold water.

  3. Add pounded alum and boil until tender and green.

  4. Drain the melons.

Make the syrup

  1. Prepare the syrup by clarifying 1 pound of sugar for every pound of melons.

Pack and syrup the jars

  1. Once the syrup is cold, place the melons in jars.

  2. Pour boiling syrup over the melons.

  3. Seal the jars and let them sit for three days.

  4. Pour boiling syrup over the melons a second time after three days.

  5. Repeat pouring boiling syrup a third time after another three days.

  6. Seal the jars and store in a cool place.

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. Melon + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together796 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Citron melons
Form the main body of the sweetmeats, becoming tender and translucent as they are cooked and syruped.
Sugar
Sweetens the melons and, as a concentrated syrup, helps preserve them.
Alum
Helps the melon pieces stay firm during boiling.

The step that matters

Repeated syrup pours over three days. Adding boiling syrup in stages, with rest periods between, lets sugar concentration build gradually. This draws water out of the melon slowly, so the pieces stay firm and do not collapse or ferment.

“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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