Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Mock Ginger Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the thick rind of a watermelon into strips, trimming off the green and removing the inside until the rind is firm.
Cover the rind with water and add enough baking soda to make the water taste of it. Let it stand for 12 to 24 hours.
Remove the rind and boil it in clear water until a straw can easily pass through.
Drain the rind and place it into a syrup made of brown sugar and pounded ginger, boiled slowly until the syrup penetrates the rind.
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.
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Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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
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