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Watermelon Pickle

A pickled watermelon rind preserved in a sugar and vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Watermelon Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Peel the watermelon rind and cut it into pieces.

  2. Boil the rind in ginger tea until clear, then soak in cold water overnight.

Make the pickle

  1. The next morning, make a syrup with sugar and vinegar.

  2. Just before removing from heat, pour in the vinegar and preserve 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. 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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 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 bulk of the pickle and sets its firm, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the rind by drawing out moisture in the syrup.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the rind.

The step that matters

Boil the rind in ginger tea until clear. Heat softens the rind's cell walls and pectin. Boiling until just clear gives a tender but still firm piece. Overcooking breaks the rind down into a mushy texture.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, 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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