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Preserved Melons in Syrup

Melons preserved in a sugar syrup by repeated boiling and cooling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and melon work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 796 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Preserved Melons in Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melons

  1. Cut the melons into quarters, remove the seeds, and peel off the rinds.

  2. Parboil the melons for 3 minutes.

  3. Immerse the parboiled melons in cold water and drain.

  4. Place the melons in an earthen bowl.

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup by boiling 3 pounds of sugar with 1¼ pounds of water, skimming it well.

  2. Pour the boiling syrup over the melons and cover with paper.

  3. Let the mixture sit for 24 hours.

  4. Drain the syrup from the bowl.

  5. Boil the syrup again, adding more sugar until it reaches a thread consistency.

  6. Let the syrup cool.

  7. Pour the cooled syrup over the melons again.

Finish over three days

  1. Boil the syrup again the next day to the same consistency, skimming well, and pour it over the melons hot.

  2. On the following day, boil the syrup to a thick thread, add the melons, and let simmer slowly for 5 minutes. Skim well.

  3. Place the melons in glass jars and cover tightly once cooled.

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. Sugar + melontop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together796 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Melons
Provide the fruit that becomes tender and translucent as it absorbs the sugar syrup.
Loaf sugar
Forms a concentrated syrup that preserves the fruit and gives it sweetness and body.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can form a syrup that penetrates the melon.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup to a thick thread. Sugar must reach a high enough concentration to preserve the fruit. Undercooked syrup leaves the melons prone to spoiling, while careful skimming keeps the syrup clear.

“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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