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Dessert

Preserved Melons

A method for preserving melons in a sugar syrup with lemon rind and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Preserved Melons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melon

  1. Remove the rind and seeds from the melon, cut into pieces about the size of root ginger pieces.

  2. Place the melon pieces in a mixture of strong salt and water, let them remain for ten days. Then pour off the water, replace with fresh water, and change twice daily for three or four days until the salt taste is gone.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine one quart of water with one pound of white sugar to make a syrup; add the rind of three lemons and another pound of sugar to each quart of syrup.

  2. Scrape the outside of the best white ginger (quantity according to taste) and put it into a thin syrup made of the same proportions of water.

Preserve

  1. Drain the fruit, pour the syrup and ginger over it while boiling hot, and keep this for three days.

  2. Simmer until clear. After the first day's simmering, slice ginger to impart more flavor, but do not allow the ginger to boil.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

63Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
17 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 6 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Quincenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Quince + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Quince + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together336 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

White sugar
Sweetens the syrup and preserves the fruit by drawing out its moisture.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic citrus oils and a bright, sharp flavor to the syrup.
Ginger
Adds warm, pungent aroma and flavor to the syrup.
Melon (in the method)
Forms the preserved fruit pieces that absorb the syrup's sweetness.

The step that matters

Slice the ginger after the first day's simmering, without boiling. Boiling ginger hardens its texture and dulls its aroma, so keeping it at a gentle simmer lets it soften and release more flavor into the syrup.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, 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.

More preserved melons recipes

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