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Dessert

Watermel Preserves

Preserved watermelon rinds in a sweet and acidic syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Watermel Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rinds

  1. Dissolve the alum in the water.

  2. Scald the watermelon rinds until tender.

  3. Add 1 cup of vinegar and stew the rinds slowly until they turn green.

  4. Soak the rinds in cold water for 1 hour, changing the water often.

Make the syrup and finish

  1. Make a syrup with the white sugar and ¾ pint of vinegar, seasoning with ginger, cinnamon, lemon, and mace.

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the rinds for three or four mornings.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 rinds (in the method)
Form the body of the preserve, becoming tender and firm when scalded and stewed.
Alum
Firms the rind tissue so it holds its shape during long cooking and soaking.
White sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the rinds through repeated pouring.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the rinds.

The step that matters

Soaking the rinds in cold water. Soaking leaches out the alum and excess acid, and changing the water often keeps the rinds from tasting harsh or sour before the sugar syrup is added.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

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