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Sweet Pickled Watermelon

A preserved dish of watermelon rinds pickled in a sweet vinegar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Sweet Pickled Watermelon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rinds

  1. Dissolve the salt in enough water to cover the watermelon rinds.

  2. Boil the rinds until tender.

  3. Drain the rinds.

  4. Dry the rinds with a clean towel.

Pack the jars

  1. Layer the rinds in jars.

  2. Sprinkle the spices between layers.

Make and pour the syrup

  1. Make a syrup by combining the vinegar and sugar.

  2. Pour the syrup over the fruit each day until the rinds are uniformly colored.

  3. Boil everything together for fifteen minutes.

  4. Cook the syrup until thick.

  5. Pour it over the pickles.

  6. Seal the jars.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cider + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,683 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 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 rinds
Form the bulk of the pickle and absorb the syrup's flavor as they soften.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp, preserving tang.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps it thicken as it cooks down.
Cinnamon bark
Contributes warm aroma and spice to the syrup and rinds.
Whole cloves
Adds strong aromatic spice that infuses the rinds during soaking.

The step that matters

Cook the syrup until thick. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates, so a properly reduced syrup preserves the rinds and coats them well. Under-cooked syrup stays thin and can leave the pickle watery and less stable.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, 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.

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