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 ↓
Water Melon Sweet Pickle
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the watermelon
Cut the solid part of the watermelon into pieces about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide.
Cook the watermelon pieces in slightly salted water until just tender enough to pierce with a broom straw.
Drain the watermelon in a colander or sieve and place it in a stone jar.
Make the syrup and soak
In a pot, combine vinegar, whole cloves, sugar, stick cinnamon, and mace.
Boil the mixture for a few minutes.
Pour the syrup over the watermelon and let it stand overnight.
Cook and jar
The next day, pour off the syrup and bring it to a boil.
Add half of the watermelon to the boiling syrup and cook until clear.
Using a silver fork, lift the cooked pieces onto a platter and add the remaining watermelon to the syrup.
If there is not enough syrup, add more vinegar and sugar as needed.
Place the watermelon pieces in jars and pour the syrup over them, ensuring they are covered.
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.
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Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Clove + macetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 rind
- Provides the firm, bite-sized pieces that hold their shape after cooking in syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pickle and, through its concentration in the syrup, helps preserve the watermelon.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the pickle.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the cooking water so the watermelon pieces taste evenly seasoned.
The step that matters
Cooking the watermelon until just tender. Overcooked watermelon turns soft and mushy, while undercooked pieces stay tough. Testing with a broom straw helps find the point where the pieces are tender but still hold their shape.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, sugar, cinnamon):
- Allspicefits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Cardamomfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, 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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