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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) · 6 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 the lemons

  1. Pare the yellow rind off the lemons very thin and cut out a piece at the blossom end.

  2. Remove the pulps and pips.

  3. Rub the lemons all over with coarse sea salt and immerse them in cold water for five to six days.

Make the syrup and simmer

  1. Boil the lemons in new salt and water for twenty minutes.

  2. Prepare a syrup with 1 pound of loaf sugar and 1 quart of water, skimming it well.

  3. Add the lemons and boil for five to six minutes each day for four days.

  4. Place the lemons in a jar, ensuring they are completely covered with syrup, and let them stand for six weeks.

Finish and store

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

  2. Boil the lemons gently in this syrup for ten minutes.

  3. Set the lemons aside and boil them again at short intervals until they look plump and clear.

  4. Transfer the lemons to jars or glasses and pour the cold syrup over them.

  5. Cover with brandy paper and tie 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 rind and pulp that are preserved and turned tender and translucent in syrup.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the lemons and firms the rind during the initial curing.
Loaf sugar
Forms the syrup that preserves the lemons and gives them sweetness.
Best refined sugar
Makes a thicker syrup that keeps the lemons glossy, clear and preserved.

The step that matters

Simmering in syrup at short intervals. Heating the lemons repeatedly in syrup lets sugar gradually replace water in the rind, so they turn plump and clear. Boiling too hard or too long can break down the rind and make it ragged.

“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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