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Lemons, to Preserve

A method for preserving lemons in salt and syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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 ↓

Lemons, to Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thinly peel the yellow rind off the lemons and remove the pulps and seeds.

  2. Rub the lemons with coarse sea salt.

  3. Immerse the lemons in cold water for 5-6 days.

  4. Boil the lemons in fresh saltwater for 20 minutes.

Make the syrup

  1. Prepare a syrup with 1 pound of loaf sugar and 1 quart of water, and skim the syrup well.

  2. Add the lemons to the syrup.

  3. Boil the lemons in the syrup for 5-6 minutes each day for 4 days.

  4. Place the lemons in a jar, ensuring they are covered with syrup.

  5. Let the lemons sit for 6 weeks.

Reboil in thick syrup

  1. Make a thick syrup with refined sugar and water.

  2. Gently boil the lemons in the thick syrup for 10 minutes.

  3. Set the lemons aside.

  4. Boil the lemons again at short intervals until they look plump and clear.

Pack and seal

  1. Transfer the lemons to jars or glasses.

  2. Pour the cold syrup over the lemons.

  3. Cover the lemons with brandy paper.

  4. Seal with bladders or leather.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar 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 lemons
Provide the main flavor, with aromatic oils from the rind and acidity from the pulp.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the rind and softens it, helping it take up the syrup and resist spoilage.
Loaf sugar
Forms the syrup that preserves the rind by drawing out water and sweetens the lemons.

The step that matters

Keeping the lemons fully covered with syrup. Any lemon part left above the syrup can dry out or spoil during the long rest. Sugar syrup preserves by binding water and blocking microbes, so every piece must stay submerged.

“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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