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Dessert

To Preserve Citron Watermelon

A preserved fruit made from citron watermelon, sugar, alum-water, spring-water, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

To Preserve Citron Watermelon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the dark green skin and scrape the soft pulp from the inside of the citron watermelon.

  2. Cut the citron into slices.

  3. Boil the slices in alum-water until clear.

  4. Soak the slices in spring-water for 2-3 hours, changing the water frequently.

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup with ½ pound of sugar.

  2. Boil the watermelon slices in the syrup until transparent.

  3. After 2-3 days, remove the jelly.

Finish and season

  1. Add the remaining ½ pound of sugar and boil again.

  2. Pour the syrup over the watermelon slices.

  3. Season with ginger.

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 + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Citron watermelon
Forms the body of the preserve; its firm flesh holds its shape through long simmering in syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as the syrup concentrates, helps the slices turn translucent and keep.
Alum-water
Helps keep the citron slices firm during boiling.
Ginger
Adds aroma and a warm, spicy flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the watermelon slices in the syrup until transparent. Slow simmering in sugar syrup draws water out of the fruit and replaces it with sugar, which makes the flesh clear. Boiling too briefly leaves the slices opaque, while overcooking can soften them too much.

“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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