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Dessert

American Citron

A preserved citron made by brining, alum washing, boiling with lemon rind, and sweetening with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Brine

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

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

  3. Prepare a weak brine with 1 tablespoon of salt per quart of water for each pound of citron.

  4. Pour the brine over the citron, cover, and let it sit overnight.

Cook the citron

  1. In the morning, drain the citron and wash each piece in alum-water (1 quart of water with a piece of alum the size of a grain of corn).

  2. After 30 minutes, drain the citron again and place it in a preserving kettle.

  3. Add enough fresh water to cover the citron and the grated rind of a large lemon.

  4. Boil slowly until the citron is tender enough to pierce with a large needle.

  5. If it boils dry, add more cold water.

  6. Once tender, remove each piece with a fork and spread them on a large dish.

Finish with sugar

  1. Strain and measure the liquid, adding 1 pound of double-refined loaf 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
Form the main body of the preserve, becoming tender and translucent during slow simmering.
Double-refined loaf sugar
Sweetens the preserve and helps preserve the citron by drawing out moisture.
Coarse sea salt
Brine draws water out of the citron and firms its flesh before cooking.
Alum
Helps the citron stay firm and crisp during long simmering.

The step that matters

Slow boiling until tender. Boiling too hard or letting the pan boil dry can toughen or scorch the citron unevenly. Keeping it at a gentle simmer with enough liquid lets it soften through evenly while holding its shape.

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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