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Preserve

Lemons Preserved

A method of preserving lemons by salting, boiling, and storing them in syrup.

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. Pare the yellow rind off the lemons very thin and cut out a piece from the blossom end.

  2. Remove the pulps and pips.

  3. Rub the lemons all over with coarse sea salt.

  4. Immerse them in cold water for 5-6 days.

  5. Boil the lemons in fresh saltwater for 20 minutes.

Make the syrup and cure

  1. Prepare a syrup with 1 pound loaf sugar and 1 quart of water.

  2. Skim the syrup well.

  3. Add the lemons to the syrup.

  4. Boil for 5-6 minutes each day for 4 days.

  5. Place the lemons in a jar ensuring they are completely covered by the syrup.

  6. Let them stand for 6 weeks.

Finish and seal

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

  2. Gently boil the lemons in it for 10 minutes.

  3. Set the lemons aside.

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

  5. Transfer the lemons to jars or glasses and pour the cold syrup over them.

  6. Cover with brandy paper and seal with bladder and leather.

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 main flavour and the edible peel that softens during curing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and begins to preserve and soften the lemon peel.
Loaf sugar
Forms a concentrated syrup that preserves the lemons and adds sweetness.

The step that matters

Keeping the lemons fully covered in syrup. Any lemon left above the syrup can mould or spoil during the long standing period. Sugar syrup at high concentration inhibits microbial growth, but only where it fully surrounds 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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