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Watermel Pickles

Pickled watermelon rinds preserved in a sweet vinegar solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Watermel Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rinds

  1. Prepare the watermelon rinds and soak them in a mixture of weak vinegar and water for 12 hours.

  2. Boil the rinds in the same water until they are clear, then drain well.

Make the syrup and pack

  1. In a pot, combine ½ cup vinegar, 1 pound sugar, spices in a bag, and 1 stick of cinnamon, then boil this mixture thoroughly.

  2. Place the rinds in jars and pour the hot vinegar mixture over them.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. 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 rinds
Form the pickle's bulk and, once boiled until clear, its tender, translucent texture.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the pickles.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar's sharpness and helps preserve the pickles.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavor to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the rinds until clear. Rinds that are underboiled stay opaque and tough, while overboiling makes them soft and mushy. Draining well keeps excess water from diluting the hot syrup poured over them.

“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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