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Dessert

To Pickle Melon Mangoes

Melons pickled with mustard seed, garlic, and spiced vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,053 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

To Pickle Melon Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the melons in half and remove the pulpy part and seeds.

  2. Soak the halves in strong brine for one week.

Fill and pickle

  1. Fill the melons with mustard seed and garlic, then tie them together with kitchen twine.

  2. Place them in jars and pour boiling spiced vinegar over them.

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. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Melon + mustardtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together133 recipes

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

  5. Melon + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together416 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Melons
Provide the firm flesh that absorbs the brine and spiced vinegar flavours.
Strong brine
Salt draws out moisture and firms the melon flesh during the long soak.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that lingers in the pickled melon.
Garlic
Contributes a savoury aroma and pungency to the filling.
Boiling spiced vinegar
Its acidity preserves the melon and gives it a tangy, sharp taste.

The step that matters

Soaking the halves in strong brine. Salt draws water out of the melon and firms its flesh. If the brine is too weak or the soak too short, the melon stays soft and may not pickle evenly.

Swap the melon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, garlic, vinegar):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, garlic, vinegar. 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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