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Melon Mangoes

Pickled cantaloupes stuffed with cabbage, spices, and pickled cucumber, then preserved in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 melons

  1. Prepare a strong brine with salt and water and soak the cantaloupes for 24 hours.

  2. Remove the cantaloupes, cut a slice from one side, and clean out the seeds.

  3. Rinse the cantaloupes in cold water and return them to the brine.

  4. Scald the cantaloupes several mornings by boiling the brine in a brass kettle.

  5. When they are green enough, scald them in a mixture of vinegar and water for three days.

Stuff and pack

  1. Prepare the stuffing by mixing cabbage, mustard seeds, celery seeds, pickled cucumber, onion, horseradish, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, sugar, and pepper.

  2. Fill each cantaloupe with the stuffing and place them in a stone jar.

  3. Cover the filled cantaloupes with strong cider vinegar.

  4. Optionally, add a teaspoon of salad oil to each melon.

  5. Tie the cantaloupes with strips of bleached cotton to secure the stuffing.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cucumber + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Young cantaloupes
Form the pickle body; they are softened and flavoured by the brine and vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Strong brine draws out moisture and firms the melon flesh during soaking.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the melons and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Cabbage
Adds crunchy bulk to the stuffing and absorbs the pickling flavours.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Pickled cucumber
Adds tangy, crisp texture to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Scalding the melons in the vinegar and water mixture. Heating softens the rind and flesh enough to absorb the pickling liquid while keeping the melons intact. Scalding too little leaves them firm and under-pickled; too much can make them collapse.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, vinegar, cabbage, mustard, celery, cucumber, horseradish):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, vinegar, cabbage, mustard, celery, cucumber, 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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