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To Preserve Limes

Preserve limes by removing pulp, salting, scalding, and boiling in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hodgson, Mary, fl. 1855 · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lime are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,332 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

To Preserve Limes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Get the limes green.

  2. Take out all the inside very carefully with a pen-knife.

  3. Lay them for twenty-four hours in salt and water.

  4. Take them out.

  5. Wash and scald them till all of the salt is out.

Cook in syrup

  1. Make a syrup with three quarters of a pound of sugar to a pound of limes.

  2. Skim the syrup.

  3. Put the syrup in the fruit.

  4. Let them boil till clear.

  5. Boil the limes in water for twenty minutes before they go in the syrup.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

60Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
16 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 2 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Limejuice of 1 lime (44ml)11

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Hodgson, Mary, fl. 1855. 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. See the original page.

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. Sugar + limetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Limes
The main fruit, whose peel and flesh become clear and tender as they cook in the syrup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and forms a thick syrup that draws water out of the fruit, helping it keep.

The step that matters

Washing and scalding out the salt. The limes must be washed and scalded until all the salt is gone. Salt left in the fruit would make the preserve harshly salty and spoil its balance with the sugar syrup.

“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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