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Preserve

Pickled Watermelon

Watermelon rind strips cured in brine, boiled in alum water, then simmered in a spiced sugar and vinegar syrup to make a pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Pickled Watermelon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Remove the hard outer rind and soft inner substance from the watermelon rind, then cut it into narrow strips.

  2. Soak the strips in brine strong enough to float an egg for 10 days.

Firm the strips

  1. After 10 days, remove the strips and place them in a preserving kettle with enough cold water to cover.

  2. Bring to a slow boil and cook for 5 minutes, then skim and plunge into ice water.

  3. Let the strips stand in ice water for 24 hours.

  4. Bring the strips to a slow boil again in alum water for 5 minutes, then plunge into ice water and let stand for 5 hours.

  5. For the third time, boil the strips for 5 minutes and set aside in the same water until morning.

  6. The next day, simmer the rinds in enough sweetened water to cover for 10 minutes.

  7. Remove from water and spread on dishes to cool.

Make the syrup and pickle

  1. Prepare the final syrup by combining 1 pound of sugar with 1 pound of rind and 1/2 ounce of sliced white ginger in a pot with 1 cup of water for every quart of sugar.

  2. Heat until the sugar dissolves, then add the rinds and simmer until clear.

  3. Add 2 cups of vinegar, 1 tablespoon of turmeric, and mace, cloves, and cinnamon to taste to the syrup.

  4. Bring to a boil and return the rinds to simmer for 15 minutes.

  5. Pack the hot pickles into fruit jars.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Turmeric + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Watermelon rind
Forms the pickle itself, becoming tender and translucent as it is repeatedly cooked and soaked.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and, in the syrup, draws water out of the rind to preserve it.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp flavour and helps preserve it.
Alum
Hardens the rind's flesh so the strips keep their shape through repeated boiling.

The step that matters

Soaking the strips in brine for 10 days. The brine must be strong enough to float an egg; if it is weaker, the rind may spoil or not cure properly during the long soak, and the strips will not firm up as intended.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, ginger, turmeric, clove, 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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