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Melon Mangoes

A pickled cantaloupe stuffed with a spice mixture and preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Melon Mangoes

Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Melon Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melons

  1. Soak the cantaloupes in a strong brine for 24 hours.

  2. Remove one slice from each melon to clean out the seeds.

  3. Rinse the melon in cold water.

  4. Return the melons to the brine.

  5. Scald the melons by boiling the brine for several mornings.

  6. Scald the melons in a mixture of vinegar and water for three days.

Stuff and pack

  1. Prepare a stuffing with cabbage, mustard seed, celery seed, pickled cucumber, onion, horseradish, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, sugar, and pepper.

  2. Fill each melon with the stuffing.

  3. Secure the stuffing with cotton strips.

  4. Place the stuffed melons in a stone jar.

  5. Cover the jar with strong cider vinegar.

  6. Optionally, add a teaspoon of salad oil to each melon.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Cantaloupes
Form the pickled shell, which softens and takes up brine and vinegar flavor during scalding.
Cabbage
Supplies bulk and crunch to the stuffing that fills each melon.
Pickled cucumber
Adds tangy, sour flavor to the stuffing.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the melons and sharpens their flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sourness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Scalding the melons in brine and vinegar. Repeated scalding softens the melon flesh and lets it absorb the acidic, salty liquid. Too little scalding leaves the pickle firm and under-flavored, while overcooking can make the melons mushy.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, vinegar, cabbage, mustard, celery, cucumber, horseradish):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, vinegar, cabbage, mustard, celery, cucumber, horseradish. 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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