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Watermelon Pickle

A pickle made from watermelon rind, sweetened with sugar and vinegar, spiced with cinnamon, cloves, allspice, ginger, and alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Watermelon Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Pare the watermelon rind and cut it into thick strips.

  2. Boil 1 oz. alum in 1 gallon of water.

  3. Pour the alum solution over the rind and let it stand until clear.

  4. Drain the rind and chill it in cold water.

Make and cook the pickle

  1. Make a syrup by combining vinegar, sugar, and spices tied in cheesecloth.

  2. When the syrup is boiling, add the rind and cook for about 30 minutes.

  3. Place the mixture in sterile jars and seal.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Watermelon rind
Forms the pickled body of the dish, absorbing the syrup as it cooks.
Light brown sugar
Provides sweetness and helps thicken the syrup as it cooks down.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavor and helps preserve it.
Alum
Firms the rind's texture so it stays crisp through long cooking.

The step that matters

Letting the rind stand in alum solution until clear. Alum firms the rind's cell structure so it stays crisp rather than turning soft during the long simmer in syrup. Soaking too briefly leaves the texture limp, and the rind needs a thorough rinse-and-chill afterward to stop the alum from over-firming it.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, clove, allspice. 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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