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Sweet Pickled Watermelon Rinds

A sweet pickle made from watermelon rinds simmered in vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Sweet Pickled Watermelon Rinds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rinds

  1. Prepare the watermelon rinds and soak them in a mixture of vinegar and water for 12 hours.

  2. Boil the rinds in the same water until tender, then drain well.

Make and pour the syrup

  1. In a separate pot, combine ½ cup vinegar, 1 pound sugar, mace, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon.

  2. Place the rinds in a jar and pour the vinegar mixture over them.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Watermelon rinds
Form the pickled bulk, becoming tender and absorbing the spiced syrup.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and flavours the pickle.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boiling the rinds until tender. Rinds must be fully softened before pickling, because the syrup penetrates and sets the texture only after the rind's firm outer layer has been broken down by heat.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, allspice, clove, 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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