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Pickled Lemons

Lemons preserved in a spiced vinegar brine, boiled and sealed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Lemons

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Place the lemons in brine that can float an egg and let them sit for 6 days, stirring daily.

Boil and cool

  1. Boil the lemons in 2 quarts of water for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the lemons and place them in a cloth until cool.

Pickle

  1. Boil enough vinegar to cover the lemons, adding the spices.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the lemons and seal securely.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 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

Lemons
Provide the fruit that softens and absorbs the brine and vinegar flavours during pickling.
Vinegar
Acidifies the lemons and carries the spice flavours while preserving the fruit.
Cloves
Add warm aromatic flavour to the pickling vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, slightly bitter flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar over the lemons and seal securely. Hot vinegar softens the peel and helps the lemons absorb the spices, while a tight seal keeps the acidic liquid covering the fruit and prevents spoilage from air exposure.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, egg, vinegar, clove, mace, ginger, mustard):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, vinegar, clove, mace, ginger, mustard. 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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