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Citron Preserved

A preserved citron made by boiling slices with alum, sugar syrup, ginger, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Citron Preserved

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the citron

  1. Cut the citron into thin slices.

  2. Boil the slices in water with a small piece of alum until clear and tender, then rinse in cold water.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Make a syrup by boiling ¾ pound of sugar with a piece of ginger.

  2. Add the citron to the syrup and let it boil for a few minutes.

  3. Add 1 lemon for every 5 pieces of citron.

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

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

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Citron
Forms the main body of the preserve and turns tender and translucent when simmered.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as a thick syrup, draws water out of the fruit to help it keep.
Alum
Firms the citron so the slices hold their shape and do not turn mushy during cooking.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet syrup and balances its sugar.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the citron until clear and tender. Boil long enough that the slices turn clear and soften fully, since firm pieces stay tough once they are in the syrup. Boil too hard or too long and the slices break down and become ragged.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger. 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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