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Dessert

Compote of Melons

A compote made by simmering sliced melon with syrup and cinnamon, then steeping and serving with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Melon and cinnamon work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 241 recipes. Both carry cinnamyl acetate, which smells sweet aromatic, cinnamon. The science ↓

Compote of Melons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melon

  1. Cut the melon into ribs or slices, removing the peel and seeds.

  2. Pare away any rough edges.

Cook and steep

  1. Place the melon pieces in a saucepan with syrup and a piece of cinnamon.

  2. Simmer for 15 minutes over medium heat.

  3. Allow the melon to steep in the syrup for several hours.

Serve

  1. Serve the compote with its syrup poured over it.

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 + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  2. Syrup + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together990 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Melon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Melon
Forms the body of the compote and softens into tender pieces when simmered.
Syrup
Provides sweetness and moisture, and carries flavour into the melon as it steeps.

Swap the melon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, cinnamon. 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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