Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Preserve Citrons
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the citrons
Pare the outer skin off the citrons and cut them into quarters, removing the middle.
Soak the quarters in salt and water for 4-5 hours.
Rinse the citrons in fresh water until the saltiness is gone.
Boil a small lump of alum in water and scald the citrons in the weak alum-water.
Cook and candy
Simmer the citrons with layers of green vine leaves for 2 hours.
Make a syrup with ½ pint of water for each pound of loaf sugar; boil and skim until clear.
Add the citrons to the syrup and boil slowly until soft enough to pierce with a straw.
Dry and finish
Place the citrons in a large dish and set them in the sun to harden.
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.
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Fine citrons
- Provide the fruit that is softened, candied and preserved.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the peel and, as a thick syrup, preserves it through concentration.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and bitterness from the citron peel during soaking.
- Alum
- Firms the peel so it holds its shape during long simmering.
The step that matters
Adding the citrons to the syrup and boiling slowly. Boiling too hard can break down or toughen the peel, while slow simmering lets sugar penetrate gradually. Test softness by piercing with a straw before removing them.
“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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