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Musx-melon Mangoes

A pickled melon dish flavored with mustard seeds, horseradish, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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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 ↓

Musx-melon Mangoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the melons

  1. Cut a piece out of the side of each melon and remove the contents.

  2. Sew one end of each melon closed with a needle and white thread.

  3. Soak the melons in cold brine for 10 days.

  4. Soak them in fresh water for 24 hours, then drain and dry.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the mustard seeds with hot vinegar.

  2. Combine the mixture with horseradish, onions, black pepper, mace, cloves, turmeric, ginger, and chopped pepper.

  3. Add garlic and sugar to the mixture.

  4. Fill the melons firmly.

  5. Sew the opening closed with strong white thread.

Cook and pack

  1. Place the melons in a porcelain kettle with a lump of alum.

  2. Cover with weak vinegar.

  3. Bring to a boil over low heat.

  4. Let cool.

  5. Drain the melons.

  6. Pack them in a jar.

  7. Cover with cold vinegar sweetened to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Horseradish + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Young and tender melons
Form the vessel that holds the filling and absorbs the pickling flavors.
Black mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent heat that gives the pickle its characteristic bite.
White mustard seed
Contributes a milder pungency alongside the black mustard seed.
Grated horseradish
Provides sharp, volatile heat that mellows during pickling.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the melons and sharpens the flavor of the filling.

The step that matters

Filling the melons firmly. Packing the filling tightly leaves less air and space inside the melon, so the pickling liquid and spices penetrate evenly and the melon is less likely to collapse or spoil.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (melon, mustard, horseradish, onion, pepper, clove, turmeric):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against melon, mustard, horseradish, onion, pepper, clove, turmeric. 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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