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Watermelon Pickle

Pickled watermelon rind in a sweet, spiced vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Watermelon Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Pare off the green part of the watermelon rind.

  2. Cut the white part into strips.

  3. Pour boiling water over the strips in which the alum has been dissolved and leave overnight.

  4. Drain and soak the strips in fresh water for several hours.

Cook and pack

  1. Cook the strips until tender.

  2. Make a syrup with equal parts sugar and vinegar, adding cinnamon and cloves tied in a bag.

  3. Drop the melon strips into the syrup and cook until tender.

  4. Skim out the melon and place it in jars.

  5. Boil the syrup down and pour it over the 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.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Syrup + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together990 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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 main body of the pickle, becoming tender and absorbing the syrup as it cooks.
Alum
Firms the rind so it stays crisp rather than turning mushy during cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickle and gives it its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Drop the melon strips into the syrup and cook until tender. Cooking until tender is what makes the rind soft enough to eat, but overcooking breaks down its structure. Alum helps the strips hold their shape, so the cook should check texture often rather than rely on a fixed time.

Swap the clove

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

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

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