Skip to main content
Main

Watermel Pickles

Pickled watermelon rind preserved in a sweet and spiced vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Watermel Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemon

  1. Cut the lemon into oblong pieces and remove the rind and soft part near the seed.

  2. Soak the lemon pieces overnight in a mixture of 1 cup alum and water with 1 tablespoon salt.

  3. Simmer the soaked lemon in weak vinegar until tender, then drain well.

Make the syrup and pack

  1. Make a syrup by combining 1 pint vinegar, 3 pounds sugar, 2 sticks cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon whole cloves in a pot.

  2. Bring the syrup to a boil, then add the watermelon rind.

  3. Heat through and then pack into cans.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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

Watermelon rind
Forms the bulk of the pickle and absorbs the sweet-sour syrup as it cooks.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps preserve the pickle while building its syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the pickles.
Alum
Firms the texture of the lemon pieces so they stay crisp during cooking.

The step that matters

Simmering the soaked lemon in weak vinegar until tender. Alum-treated lemon can turn tough or rubbery if it is undercooked, and it must be fully tender before draining. Drain well so excess liquid does not dilute the syrup.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes