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Preserve

A Delicious Preserve

A preserve of watermelon rind cut into shapes, soaked, boiled in sugar syrup, and sealed in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon 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 ↓

A Delicious Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Pare the rind off the watermelon and cut in shapes.

  2. If you wish to have it green, put it into a kettle with alternate layers of grape leaves and small bits of alum.

  3. Pour on hot water and let boil 2 hours.

  4. Put the fruit in weak ginger water and let simmer for 3 hours.

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup, allowing 1¼ lbs. of sugar and 1 pt. of water to every pound of fruit.

  2. Skim the syrup constantly and put in the rind.

  3. Let simmer until tender.

  4. Take the fruit out and boil the syrup until quite thick.

  5. Pour the syrup over the rind, place in jars, letting syrup cover them well, and seal.

Soak and firm the rind

  1. Carefully pare the watermelon rind with a very sharp knife, taking off the outer green and leaving just the firm white rind about a quarter of an inch.

  2. After cutting the rind in shapes, put it into salt and water for 10 days.

  3. Then put it in clear water for 24 hours, changing the water once.

  4. Then put it in strong alum water for 24 hours.

  5. Throw the rinds into a pot of water, add 2 tablespoonsful of ground ginger, cover the rinds with grape leaves, and boil until the rinds are green.

  6. Place them in cold water, changing the water until the rind is cold.

Syrup and jar

  1. Prepare a thin syrup of ½ lb. of sugar to 1 lb. of rind and let the rinds simmer slowly, adding a few blades of mace.

  2. Let them stand in this syrup for 10 days or 2 weeks.

  3. Put 1½ lbs. of sugar to 1 lb. of rind into this syrup, and after the syrup boils well put in the rinds and let boil until clear.

  4. Boil 3 or 4 lemons in clear water and when tender add them to the syrup.

  5. Put in jars and cover closely.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

14Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
4 gCarbs

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

What these numbers assume: 2 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Waternot in our table0
Macenot 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.

By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  2. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Lemon + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar (in the method)
Sweetens the rind and, at high concentration, preserves it by drawing out water.
Watermelon rind (in the method)
Provides the bulk of the preserve; its firm white flesh turns tender and translucent in syrup.
Alum (in the method)
Firms the rind's structure so it holds its shape through long cooking.
Lemons
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma to the syrup and rind.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar to the syrup. Sugar added in stages, with a gentle simmer, lets the rind gradually lose water and take up syrup without shrinking or toughening. Rushing to a hard boil can break down the rind's structure and make it cloudy or tough.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Corianderfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, lemon. 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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