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Dessert

American Citron

A preserved fruit made from citron-melons, lemon rind, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Melon and lemon work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 362 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

American Citron

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the citron

  1. Pare and cut the citron-melons into four thick quarters.

  2. Weigh the citron and place it in a large bowl overnight.

  3. Prepare weak alum water by adding a bit of alum the size of a grain of corn per quart of water.

  4. Wash each piece of citron in the alum water for 30 minutes.

  5. Drain the citron pieces.

Cook and sweeten

  1. In a preserving kettle, combine the citron with enough water to cover it and add the grated rind of the lemon.

  2. Boil slowly until the citron is tender enough to pierce with a needle. Add more water if it boils dry.

  3. Remove each piece with a fork and spread them on a large dish.

  4. Strain and measure the liquid.

  5. Add 1 pound of sugar for each pint of liquid.

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. Melon + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Melon + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together796 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Citron-melons
Forms the bulk of the preserve and becomes tender and translucent through slow boiling.
Alum
Firms the citron flesh so it holds its shape during long simmering.
Double-refined loaf sugar
Sweetens and preserves the citron, drawing out moisture into a syrup.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aromatic oils from the grated rind to brighten the flavor.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until tender, adding water if it boils dry. Slow simmering softens the thick citron evenly without breaking it apart. If the pan boils dry, the pieces scorch and toughen, so the water level must be kept up.

Swap the melon

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar. 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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