Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
To Make Lemon Pickle
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lemons
Peel the lemons and cut them into quarters without cutting the bottoms.
Rub coarse sea salt and common salt into the lemons.
Place the lemons on a dish and dry them before the fire or in a slow oven until the juice and salt are dried.
Steep and mature
Put the dried lemons into a jar with mace, cloves, nutmeg, garlic, and mustard seed tied in gauze.
Pour boiling white wine vinegar over the lemons, close the jar, and let it stand for 5–6 days by the fire, shaking it often.
After 5–6 days, let the mixture stand for 3 months in a dry, cool place.
Strain and bottle
Strain the mixture through a hair sieve, pressing the lemons to extract all the juice.
Let the liquid sit until the next day, then pour it into bottles and cork them well.
Second steep
Cut the lemons into quarters and return them to the jar with the ingredients.
Cover the lemons with more boiling white wine vinegar, close the jar, and let it stand for a fortnight.
Strain the liquid again, boil it, and pour it over the lemons once more.
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.
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Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,686 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,557 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together4,053 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lemons
- Provide the main body and acidic juice that flavours the pickle.
- White wine vinegar
- Acts as the preserving liquid and adds sharp acidity that carries the spices.
- Common salt
- Draws moisture out of the lemons and helps preserve them.
- Garlic
- Adds pungent aroma that mellows during the long steeping.
- White mustard seed
- Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that infuses into the vinegar.
The step that matters
Drying the salted lemons. If the lemons stay too wet, the vinegar is diluted and the pickle may spoil. Drying until the juice and salt are dried concentrates the flavour and helps preservation.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, clove, nutmeg, garlic, mustard, white wine, vinegar):
- Tarragonfits better
- Thymefits better
- Allspicefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, clove, nutmeg, garlic, mustard, white wine, 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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