Lemon Mangoes

Ingredients

• two quarts of water
• a pound of salt to two quarts of water
• a large saltspoonful of salt

Directions

1. (_Author’s Original Receipt._)

2. All pickles of vegetables or fruit which have been emptied and filled with various ingredients, are called in England _mangoes_, having probably first been prepared in imitation of that fruit, but none that we have ever tasted, bearing the slightest resemblance to it. Young melons, large cucumbers, vegetable-marrow, and peaches are all thus designated when prepared as we have described. Lemons may be converted into an excellent pickle of the same description in the following manner.

3. After having removed from the blossom end of each a circular bit of the rind about the size of a shilling, proceed to scoop out all the pulp and skin with the handle of a teaspoon; rinse the insides of the rinds until the water from them is clear; throw them into plenty of brine made with half a pound of salt to two quarts of water, and stir them down in it often during the time. In three days change the brine, and leave them for three days longer; then drain them from it on a sieve, fill them with bruised or whole mustard-seed, very small chilies, young scraped horseradish, very small eschalots, a little ginger sliced thin, or aught else that may be liked. Sew in the parts that have been cut out, lay the lemons into a stone jar, and pour boiling on them a pickle made of their own juice, which when they are first emptied should be squeezed from the pulp through a cloth, and boiled with sufficient vinegar to keep it,—a large saltspoonful of salt, half an ounce each of ginger and of white peppercorns, and a blade or two of mace to every quart; or prepare them like the whole lemons, omitting the turmeric; and soften them if wanted for immediate eating as directed for them. They may be filled simply with mustard-seed, horseradish, and spice, if preferred so.

4. This receipt has been in print before, but without the author’s name.