Skip to main content
Dessert

Watermelon or Muskmelon Preserves

Preserves made from watermelon or muskmelon rind, sugar, and orange and lemon peelings, boiled until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Watermelon or Muskmelon Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the rind until tender.

Make the preserves

  1. In a large pot, combine the rind with 12 pounds of sugar to make a thin syrup.

  2. Boil the mixture until the rind breaks down into pieces.

  3. Add the soaked and cut orange and lemon peelings, boiled until very soft.

  4. Stir constantly from the bottom with a spatula to prevent sticking.

  5. Cook until the mixture is very thick.

Store

  1. Transfer to wide‑mouthed glass jars for storage.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 preserves and gives them their chewy, tender texture once cooked.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserves and, as it concentrates in the syrup, helps thicken and preserve them.
Orange peelings
Adds bright citrus aroma and a slightly bitter edge that balances the sweetness.
Lemon peelings
Adds acidity and fragrant citrus oils that brighten the flavour of the preserves.

The step that matters

Stir constantly from the bottom. Sugar-rich syrup scorches and sticks to the base of the pot as it thickens, and the burnt sugar gives a bitter taste. Constant stirring keeps the heat even and the rind from catching.

“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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes