Skip to main content
Dessert

Melons, to Pickle

Pickled melon slices steeped in vinegar and sugar syrup, then preserved in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Melon and clove work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 232 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Melons, to Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melon

  1. Pare off the rinds of the melons and remove all the seeds.

  2. Slice the flesh about half an inch thick.

  3. Steep the slices in good white wine vinegar for a week or ten days.

Cook and pack

  1. Cover the slices with cold fresh vinegar and simmer gently until tender.

  2. Drain the slices thoroughly on a reverse sieve and let them cool.

  3. Stick each slice with a couple of cloves and place them in glass jars.

Make the syrup and finish

  1. Make a syrup by boiling 1 pint of water and 10 oz of sugar for 20 minutes.

  2. Lift the slices out of the syrup and drain them slightly.

  3. Return them to the jars.

  4. Pour sufficient cooled, scalded white wine vinegar over the slices to cover.

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. Melon + clovetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together232 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

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

  3. Melon + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21 recipes

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

  4. White wine + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,715 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  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 is sliced, steeped and pickled into the final texture.
White wine vinegar
Acidity that softens and preserves the melon slices during steeping and covering.
Sugar
Sweetness in the syrup that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Cloves
Aroma that flavours the slices as they sit in the jars.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender. Boiling vigorously can break up the melon slices and make them mushy, while gentle simmering softens the flesh evenly so it holds its shape.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (melon, white wine, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Peppermintfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against melon, white wine, vinegar, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Clove CakeClove Cake53 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes