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Watermelon Sweet Pickle

A pickled watermelon rind preserved in a sweet and spicy brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Watermelon Sweet Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Select a ripe watermelon with a thick rind.

  2. Peel off the green skin and remove all the soft meat.

  3. Cut the rind into small pieces, ½ inch thick, and soak in strong brine for 24 hours.

  4. Remove the rind from the brine and cover with strong tea made from fresh ginger and water.

  5. Boil the covered rind until slightly transparent.

Make the syrup and pickle

  1. In a separate pot, combine vinegar, sugar, stick of cinnamon, and the ginger used for the tea to make a syrup.

  2. Add the watermelon rind to the syrup, sprinkle with white mustard seed, and boil until transparent.

  3. Seal the jars while hot.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tea + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together216 recipes

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

  3. Tea + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Cinnamon + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Watermelon rind
Forms the pickle's bulk and becomes tender and translucent as it is simmered in syrup.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps preserve the pickle in the syrup.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the pickle.
Strong brine
Draws water out of the rind and firms its texture before cooking.
Fresh ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the rind and syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the covered rind until slightly transparent. Boiling the rind gently softens its firm flesh so it absorbs syrup evenly. Overcooking can make it mushy, while undercooking leaves it tough and opaque.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Beetrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, ginger, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon. 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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