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Melons, Mangoes, and Long Cucumbers

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Melons, Mangoes, and Long Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the top off the melon or cucumber, leaving a bit of rind as a hinge.

  2. Scoop out all the seeds using a marrow spoon.

  3. Fill the fruit with equal parts of mustard seed and ground pepper, and add 2-3 cloves of garlic.

  4. Sew or tie the lid back on with white thread.

  5. For the pickle, mix vinegar with flour of mustard, curry powder, bruised ginger, turmeric, and cayenne pepper.

  6. Rub the spices together with salad oil, eschalots, and garlic, then steep in the vinegar.

  7. Put the vegetables in hot vinegar.

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 + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Clove + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, pepper, clove, vinegar, flour, ginger, turmeric):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, pepper, clove, vinegar, flour, ginger, turmeric. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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