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Water Melon Pickles

Pickled watermelon rind preserved in a sweet and spiced syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Water Melon Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Peel the green part off the watermelon rind and cut it into slices.

  2. Soak the slices overnight in water with dissolved salt and alum.

  3. Drain and soak the slices in fresh water overnight.

Cook the rind

  1. Dissolve 4 pounds of sugar in a pot of water.

  2. Cook the rind slices in the sugar solution until a fork penetrates them easily, adding them a few at a time.

  3. Drain the juice from the cooked rind into a kettle.

  4. Add whole cloves, stick cinnamon, and sliced ginger to the juice.

  5. Optionally, add sliced lemon instead of spices.

  6. Boil the mixture for 15 to 20 minutes.

Pack and finish

  1. Place the cooked rind in a jar.

  2. Pour the syrup over the rind.

  3. Once cool, add 1 pint of vinegar if desired.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 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 pickle itself, becoming tender and translucent as it cooks in syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and, as a syrup, helps preserve the rind and give it body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the pickle.
Alum
Firms the rind's texture so it stays crisp through long cooking.

The step that matters

Cook the rind until a fork penetrates easily. Rind pieces cooked in batches stay firm and cook evenly; overcooking turns them mushy, while undercooking leaves them tough and chewy.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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