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Lemons Preserved

A method of preserving lemons in salt and syrup for later use.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemons Preserved

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Wipe the lemons well and pare off the yellow rind very thin.

  2. Cut out a piece of the rind at the blossom end and remove the pulp and seeds.

  3. Rub the lemons with fine coarse sea salt.

  4. Soak the lemons in cold water for a week, fully covered.

  5. Boil the lemons in fresh salt and water for 20 minutes.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. Prepare a syrup with 1 pound loaf sugar and 1 quart water, skimming well.

  2. Add the lemons to the syrup.

  3. Boil for 5-6 minutes.

  4. Repeat this for four consecutive days.

  5. Place the lemons in a jar, covering them with syrup, and let them stand for 6 weeks.

Finish and store

  1. Make a thick syrup with refined sugar and water.

  2. Add the lemons to the thick syrup.

  3. Boil gently for 10 minutes.

  4. Let the lemons rest.

  5. Boil them again at short intervals until they look plump and clear.

  6. Transfer the lemons to jars.

  7. Pour the cold syrup over them.

  8. Cover with brandy paper and tie with bladder.

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

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

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

Lemons
Provide the fruit that is softened, flavoured and preserved in the syrup.
Loaf sugar
Forms the syrup that preserves the lemons and gives them sweetness.
Fine coarse sea salt
Draws out water and seasons the rind, helping to cure the lemons.

The step that matters

Soaking and repeated boiling in syrup. Lemons must be fully covered and soaked long enough for salt to penetrate the rind; repeated gentle boiling in syrup lets sugar draw water out and build preservation without tearing the fruit.

“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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