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Pickled Watermelon Rind

Pickled watermelon rind is preserved in a sweet vinegar solution with cinnamon and cloves.

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 ↓

Pickled Watermelon Rind

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Pare off the thin green rind and cut the white part into pieces.

  2. Cook the pieces in clear water until tender, then drain.

Make the syrup and pickle

  1. In a pot, combine the cider vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. Boil the mixture for five minutes.

  3. Add the drained watermelon rind and boil for fifteen minutes.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 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
Provides sweetness and helps preserve the rind in the syrup.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the pickle.
Watermelon rind
Main ingredient; its mild flavor takes on the spiced syrup as it simmers.

The step that matters

Cooking the rind until tender before pickling. If the rind is not fully tender after the first cooking, it will stay firm and chewy after the syrup boil, because the sugar and vinegar do not soften the rind much. Draining well also keeps the syrup from being diluted.

Swap the clove

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

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

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