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Water Melon Pickle

A pickled watermelon rind preserved in a sweet vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Water Melon Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Pare and cut the watermelon rind into pieces.

  2. Soak the rind in water with salt for 24 hours.

  3. Drain the rind and soak it in clear water for another 24 hours.

  4. Boil the rind in weak ginger tea until tender, then drain it in a colander.

Make the syrup and pickle

  1. Make a syrup by boiling vinegar, sugar, and spices for 30 minutes.

  2. Pour the syrup over the rind and let it stand for 48 hours.

  3. Boil again, adding the rind for 15-20 minutes before removing from heat.

  4. Repeat boiling until the syrup thickens.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Watermelon rind
Forms the pickled body of the dish, becoming tender after soaking and boiling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it dissolves into the boiling syrup, helps thicken it.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the rind and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Salt
Draws water out of the rind during the initial soak, firming its texture.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor to the syrup.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the spiced syrup.

The step that matters

Repeat boiling until the syrup thickens. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates during repeated boiling, so the syrup thickens gradually. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overboiling can make it too dense or cause scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon, ginger):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon, ginger. 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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