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Sweet Watermelon-rind Pickles

Pickled watermelon rind preserved in a sweet vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sweet Watermelon-rind Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Weigh 12 pounds of watermelon rind and place it in a kettle.

  2. Cover the rind with salt water and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain and wash the rind.

Cook the rind

  1. Combine 1 quart of strong vinegar, 3 pounds of brown sugar, and spices in a kettle.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the rind to the boiling mixture.

  4. Cook the rind for 30 minutes.

  5. Transfer the rind to a stone jar.

Make the syrup and seal

  1. In the remaining syrup, add 2 pounds of sugar, juice, and peel of 2 lemons.

  2. Boil the syrup until thick.

  3. Pour the syrup over the rind in the jar.

  4. Seal the jar.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + teatop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together216 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + teatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  5. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

What each ingredient does

Watermelon rind
Forms the pickle itself, becoming tender and translucent as it cooks in the syrup.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the rind and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and helps thicken the syrup as it cooks down.
Sugar
Adds further sweetness and thickens the syrup, balancing the vinegar.
Lemons
Add acidity and aromatic oils from the juice and peel to brighten the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick. Cooking the syrup down concentrates the sugar and acid, which helps preserve the rind and gives a thick, glossy coating. Undercooked syrup stays thin and may not keep the pickle well.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, ginger, tea. 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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