Skip to main content
Dessert

Watermelon Sweet Pickles

A sweet pickle made from watermelon, alum, water, vinegar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Watermelon Sweet Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the watermelon

  1. Pare the watermelon and slice it into thick pieces.

  2. Boil the alum and water, then pour it over the watermelon slices and let them stand on the back of the stove for half a day.

  3. Change the watermelon from the alum water into cold water and let it stand until cold.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Boil the sugar and vinegar, strain it, then add the spices and watermelon.

  2. Boil until the watermelon is soft.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + cinnamontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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
Provides the bulk of the pickle, and its rind and flesh turn tender and translucent as it cooks in syrup.
Alum
Firms the watermelon flesh so it holds its shape during long simmering.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the pickle and, with the vinegar, forms the thick syrup that preserves the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the pickled fruit.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavor that infuses into the syrup and fruit.
Cloves
Adds warm, pungent aroma and flavor that infuses into the syrup and fruit.

The step that matters

Soaking in alum water and then cold water. Alum adds firmness to the watermelon's pectin-rich tissue, but rinsing it thoroughly in cold water before cooking removes excess alum so the pickle does not taste harsh. Letting the slices cool fully also helps them absorb the syrup evenly.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes