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Lemon Pickle

A pickled lemon dish made with lemons, salt, garlic, spices, mustard flour, and vinegar, left to mature for eight weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Lemon Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Cut the lemons into six pieces each.

  2. Sprinkle the salt over the lemons.

Make the pickle

  1. Add the garlic, mace, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, allspice, and mustard flour.

  2. Pour in the vinegar and boil the mixture for 30 minutes.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a jar and let it sit for eight weeks, stirring daily.

  4. After eight weeks, pour the pickle into small bottles and seal tightly.

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Provide the main body and acidity that flavour the pickle as it matures.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the lemons and helps preserve the mixture.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during the long rest.
Mustard flour
Adds sharp, pungent flavour and aroma to the pickle.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the pickle and sharpens its flavour.

The step that matters

Letting the pickle sit for eight weeks. The mixture needs a long rest with regular stirring so the salt, acid and spices can soften the lemons and blend evenly. Sealing too early leaves the flavour harsh and uneven.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, clove, nutmeg, pepper, allspice, mustard, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, clove, nutmeg, pepper, allspice, mustard, flour. 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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