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Lemon Pickle or Catsup

A pickled lemon condiment made with salt, horseradish, eschalots, ginger, white pepper, mace, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lemon Pickle or Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Divide six small lemons into quarters, remove all visible pips, and sprinkle three ounces of salt over them. Keep the lemons turned in the salt for a week.

  2. Alternatively, make deep incisions in the lemons and proceed as directed for pickled lemons.

Make the pickle

  1. After the lemons have stood in a warm place for eight days, add two and a half ounces of finely-scraped horseradish, two ounces of eschalots, or one and a half ounces of garlic to a stone jar.

  2. Add the lemons with all their liquor to the jar.

  3. Pour one and a half pints of boiling vinegar over the contents, in which half an ounce of bruised ginger, a quarter ounce of whole white pepper, and two blades of mace have been simmered for two or three minutes.

Store

  1. Store the pickle for two to three months; it may be strained after four to five months.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

23Calories
1 gProtein
0 gFat
6 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

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

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Ginger + white peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together388 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 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

Lemons
Their flesh and peel supply the sour, aromatic base of the pickle.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the lemons and helps preserve them.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the lemons and sharpens the flavour.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the vinegar.
White pepper
Adds gentle, sharp spice to the infused vinegar.
Ginger
Adds warm, pungent flavour to the infused vinegar.

The step that matters

Turning the lemons in the salt. Turning the lemons keeps the salt in even contact with every surface, so the salt draws out liquid and penetrates evenly. Uneven salting lets parts of the lemon spoil while others stay under-preserved.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, lemon, mace, vinegar):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, lemon, 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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