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Dessert

Citron Preserves

Citron preserves made by boiling citron with alum water, then cooking with sugar and ginger to form a rich syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the citron

  1. Pare, core, and slice the citron or cut it into fancy shapes.

  2. Put the citron in a preserving kettle and cover with strong alum water.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes or until clear.

  4. Drain the citron.

  5. Let it stand in cold water overnight.

  6. Drain and weigh the citron. Ensure all seeds are removed.

  7. For every pound of citron, use an equal quantity of sugar.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Combine 2 quarts of water, 6 pounds of sugar, and ½ pound of white ginger root in a pot. Boil for a few minutes.

  2. Add the sugar. Cook until a rich syrup forms.

  3. Add the citron. Cook until tender and transparent.

  4. Remove the fruit. Cook the syrup until very rich and thick.

  5. Drop the fruit back into the syrup. Heat through for a few moments.

  6. Optionally, add slices of lemon.

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 bulk of the preserve and becomes tender and translucent as it cooks in syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, at high concentration, thickens the syrup and preserves the fruit.
White ginger root
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that complements the sweet citron.

The step that matters

Cooking the citron until tender and transparent. The fruit must be cooked until it is tender and translucent before the syrup is thickened. Heating it in dense sugar syrup too briefly leaves it firm, while overcooking can break it down, so the citron is softened first and then finished in the rich syrup.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. 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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