Name: Melons Preserved in Cans
Ingredients: Melons (varieties of your choice); Light syrup; Vanilla flavored syrup (32 degrees)

Why it works: Melon and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 54 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Melons Preserved in Cans

Ingredients

Melons (varieties of your choice)
Light syrup
Vanilla flavored syrup (32 degrees)

Directions

Select melons that are not too ripe. Cut them into slices and remove the seeds and soft parts.
Peel the rind and cut the hard part into scallops. Parboil the scallops until tender and drain.
Place the scallops in an earthen jar and cover with light syrup for three hours.
Remove the scallops, arrange them in quart cans, and cover with vanilla flavored syrup.
Seal the cans and boil them in a hot water bath for 30 minutes.

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.

Melon + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together54 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Syrup + vanillatop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,855 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Melon + syruptop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).