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Dessert

Melon Mangoes

A preserved melon stuffed with mustard seeds, garlic, and spices, boiled in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Melon Mangoes

Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Melon Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melon

  1. Cut a small square piece from one side of the melon and remove the seeds.

  2. Mix the seeds with mustard seeds and shredded garlic, then stuff the mixture back into the melon.

  3. Replace the square piece and bind it with pack thread.

Pickle

  1. Boil vinegar with pepper, salt, and ginger for four consecutive days, pouring it over the stuffed melon each day.

  2. On the last day, add flour of mustard and scraped horseradish to the boiling vinegar.

  3. Ensure the melon is well covered with vinegar to prevent spoilage.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Garlic + horseradishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Melon + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the melon and gives it its sharp pickled flavour.
Mustard seeds
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter bite and texture to the stuffing.
Shredded garlic
Contributes pungency and aroma to the stuffing.
Flour of mustard
Adds sharpness and heat to the pickling vinegar on the last day.
Scraped horseradish
Adds pungent heat to the pickling liquid on the last day.

The step that matters

Keep the melon fully covered with vinegar. Any part of the melon left above the liquid can spoil, since the acid in the vinegar only preserves what it covers. Repeated daily pouring keeps the surface submerged and acidic throughout the pickling.

Swap the melon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, garlic, vinegar, pepper, ginger, flour, horseradish. 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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