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Watermel Pickle

A pickled watermelon rind preserved in a sweet and spicy vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Watermel Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Peel and cut the rind of the watermelons into small, narrow pieces.

  2. Soak the rind in strong ginger tea overnight.

  3. Boil the rind in the ginger tea until tender.

Make the pickle

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, cinnamon, and some ginger tea.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the boiled rind and cook for 1 hour.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + teatop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together216 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Tea + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Mustard + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 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

Watermelon rind
Forms the pickle's main body, becoming tender and absorbing the spiced syrup as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and helps preserve it by balancing the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the rind and gives the pickle its tang.
White mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that deepens during cooking.
Cinnamon stick
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the syrup as it simmers.

The step that matters

Boiling the rind until tender before pickling. Watermelon rind is firm and fibrous. If it is not fully tender before it joins the hot vinegar syrup, the syrup will not penetrate it evenly and the texture will stay tough.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Beetrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, tea, 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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