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Watermelon Pickle

A pickled watermelon rind preserved in a sweet and spicy vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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. Pare off the green part of the watermelon rind.

  2. Cut the white part into strips.

  3. Dissolve alum in boiling water and pour the alum solution over the strips.

  4. Leave the strips overnight.

  5. Drain the strips.

  6. Soak the strips in fresh water for several hours.

  7. Cook the strips until tender.

Make the syrup and pack

  1. Make a syrup with equal parts sugar and vinegar, adding cinnamon and cloves in a bag.

  2. Drop the melon strips into the syrup.

  3. Cook the mixture until the strips are tender.

  4. Skim out the melon and place it in jars.

  5. Boil the syrup down and pour it over the melon.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + cinnamontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 main body of the pickle and absorbs the syrup's flavour and sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides the sour acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the pickle.
Alum
Helps the rind stay firm and crisp during cooking.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and adds body, balancing the vinegar's sharpness.

The step that matters

Cook the strips until tender after soaking. Rind is tough and must be cooked fully so it becomes tender, yet alum-treated strips can stay firm; undercooking leaves them chewy, while the syrup's sugar and acid firm the texture further as it reduces.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, 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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