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Pumpkins En Melon

Fried thin slices of pumpkin dusted with salt, soaked in vinegar, floured, and served with sugar or syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Pumpkins En Melon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the pumpkins into thin slices.

  2. Dust the slices with coarse sea salt.

  3. Soak the salted slices in a dish of vinegar until well soaked.

  4. Flour the slices well or dip them into a plain batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the prepared slices in deep oil until golden brown.

  2. Serve with sugar or syrup.

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. Pumpkin + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,624 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pumpkin + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Pumpkin + vinegartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkins
The main ingredient; thin slices soften inside while the outside crisps when fried.
Flour
Forms a coating that crisps and browns in the hot oil, sealing in moisture.
Oil for frying
Conducts heat around the slices, cooking them quickly and browning the coating.
Sugar or syrup
Adds sweetness to the fried slices when served.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Frying in hot oil browns the coating through the Maillard reaction and sets it crisp. Oil that is too cool lets the slices soak up grease, while stopping too early leaves the coating pale and soft.

Swap the pumpkin

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, flour, sugar. 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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