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Melon Mangoes

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Melon Mangoes

Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Melon Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Select small, round, smooth musk melons that are half ripe. Wash and soak them in weak brine overnight.

  2. Prepare a mixture of shredded cabbage, cauliflowers, green beans, celery, sliced green tomatoes, small cucumbers, and minced red pepper. Soak this mixture in brine overnight.

  3. In the morning, wash all ingredients in fresh water and drain.

  4. Cut a small piece from each melon around the stem and carefully scrape out the inside.

  5. Sprinkle the inside of each melon with celery seed and fill with the vegetable mixture, adding bits of cinnamon, whole cloves, and a little cayenne.

  6. Sew the tops back on the melons and plunge them into scalding vinegar for five minutes.

  7. Pack the melons in a jar and cover with scalding vinegar. Place a weight on top.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Cauliflower + green beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Swap the musk melon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cauliflower, green beans, celery, tomato, cucumber, pepper):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Musk melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cauliflower, green beans, celery, tomato, cucumber, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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