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Preserve

Lemon Mangoes

Whole lemons are emptied, stuffed with mustard seed, horseradish and ginger, and pickled in brine and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lemon Mangoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Cut a round piece from the blossom end of each lemon, larger than a shilling. Scoop out the insides of the lemons.

  2. Rinse the lemons with cold water to remove loose pulp.

Brine

  1. Soak the lemons in brine made with 4 ounces of salt in 1 quart of water, stirring frequently.

  2. Change the brine after 3 days.

  3. Let the lemons soak for another 3 days.

  4. Drain the lemons.

Fill and pickle

  1. Fill the lemons with equal parts bruised mustard seed and finely scraped horseradish, thinly sliced ginger, and optional shallots or garlic.

  2. Sew the cut pieces back on to the lemons.

  3. Pack the lemons in a stone jar.

  4. Pour boiling pickle made with lemon juice, 1 large salt spoonful of salt, ½ ounce ginger, ½ ounce white peppercorns, and 1-2 blades of mace mixed with vinegar over the lemons.

  5. If you want to eat them quickly, place the jar in a cool oven overnight; otherwise, let them stand for 5-6 months.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Horseradish + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine sound lemons
Form the pickle's body; their peel and flesh soften and absorb the brine and spices.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and firms the lemons while seasoning them through the brine.
Bruised mustard seed
Adds sharp, pungent heat that mellows during the long pickling period.
Young finely scraped horseradish
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour that penetrates the lemon during storage.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its overall flavour.

The step that matters

Changing the brine and soaking the full time. Salt draws water out of the lemons and seasons them gradually. Skipping the brine change or shortening the soak leaves the lemons too bitter, salty or wet, and the pickle may spoil before the flavours settle.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, mustard, horseradish, ginger, mace, vinegar):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Radishfits about as well
  3. Broccolifits about as well
  4. Beetrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, mustard, horseradish, ginger, mace, vinegar. 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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