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Preserved Watermel Rind

A preserved watermelon rind made by boiling with alum, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Preserved Watermel Rind

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the watermelon rind into small pieces.

  2. Boil the alum and water, then pour it over the rind and let it stand overnight.

  3. Drain the rind in the morning.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. Boil the vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves together.

  2. Pour the mixture over the rind and boil until clear.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack the rind into jars and seal.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cider + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,683 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the rind by drawing out moisture.
Alum
Firms the rind so it keeps a crisp texture during cooking.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the rind.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavor to the syrup.
Cloves
Adds warm, spicy aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the rind in the syrup until clear. Heating the rind in the sugar and vinegar syrup lets it absorb sugar and flavor. Cooking until the rind turns clear shows the syrup has penetrated, which affects both texture and how well it keeps.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, cider, vinegar. 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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