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Pickled Lemons

Pickled lemons are preserved lemons seasoned with salt, spices, and vinegar, left to mature for months.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Lemons

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the lemons

  1. Cut the lemons deeply with several incisions from end to end and fill the cuts with coarse sea salt.

  2. Place the lemons upright in a dish in a warm place for three weeks, rubbing them with additional salt occasionally.

  3. Remove the lemons from the brine.

Pickle

  1. Place them in a jar and add mustard seed, bruised ginger, cloves, allspice, turmeric, and chilis to the jar.

  2. Boil vinegar and pour the boiled vinegar over the lemons.

  3. Let the pickles sit for about six months before using.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 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

Firm, small lemons
Provide the fruit whose peel and flesh are preserved and softened by salt and acid.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the lemons and preserves them during the long salting period.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the lemons and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and lemon with a touch of sweetness.
Mustard seed
Contributes a pungent, sharp aroma and flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Rubbing the lemons with salt over three weeks. Salt draws water out of the lemons and keeps the fruit from spoiling during the long warm rest. Skipping the occasional re-salting can leave the lemons under-preserved and soft.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, mustard, ginger, clove, allspice, turmeric, vinegar):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, mustard, ginger, clove, allspice, turmeric, 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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