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Lemon Pickle

A pickled lemon preserved with salt, spices, vinegar, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lemon Pickle

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the lemons

  1. Cut the lemons in half and squeeze out the juice.

  2. Cut each half into four pieces and rub each piece with salt.

Dry and season

  1. Place the lemon pieces in a 300°F (150°C) oven until they are brown and hard.

  2. Rub the lemon pieces with turmeric and place them in a jar.

Pickle

  1. Pour the juice, spices, vinegar, and cayenne pepper over the lemons.

  2. Cover the jar and set it on a hot hearth or the back of the stove until the pickles are soft.

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

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

  2. Clove + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Turmeric + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 sour acidity of the pickle.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the lemons and sharpens the flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the lemon pieces and seasons them.
Turmeric
Gives the pickle its yellow colour and a mild earthy flavour.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that gives the pickle a spicy kick.

The step that matters

Drying the salted lemon pieces in the oven. The lemons must be taken until brown and hard, not just warmed. Salt and low heat pull out moisture, so the pieces firm up and can absorb the vinegar and spices later without turning mushy too early.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, clove, turmeric, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, clove, turmeric, vinegar, pepper. 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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