Skip to main content
Dessert

Sweet Pickled Canteloupe

A sweet pickled cantaloupe preserved in vinegar, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Sweet Pickled Canteloupe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cantaloupe

  1. Remove the soft part of the cantaloupe, pare it, and cut it into strips.

  2. Place the strips in a jar and cover them with vinegar.

  3. Let stand overnight.

  4. Drain the cantaloupe.

Make the syrup

  1. Measure the vinegar. For each pint of vinegar, add 2 cups of sugar, 1 tablespoon of cloves, and 1 ounce of cinnamon (tied in cheesecloth).

  2. Heat the vinegar mixture to boiling.

  3. Let it boil for ten minutes.

  4. Add the cantaloupe.

  5. Cook until translucent.

  6. Remove the fruit.

Jar and seal

  1. Place it in sterilized jars.

  2. Cover the cantaloupe with the vinegar and sugar syrup.

  3. Adjust the rubbers and covers on the jars.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + cinnamontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cantaloupe
Is the fruit being preserved, becoming tender and translucent as it cooks in the syrup.
Vinegar
Acidifies the syrup, giving the pickled sharp flavour and helping preserve the fruit.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and, with the vinegar, builds the syrup that the fruit absorbs.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the syrup as it steeps.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, warm aromatic flavour to the syrup as it steeps.

The step that matters

Cook until translucent. Cantaloupe must be cooked long enough to turn translucent so it softens and absorbs the syrup; undercooked pieces stay firm and opaque.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Allspicefits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes