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Lemon Pickle

A pickled lemon preparation with garlic, horseradish, mustard flour, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lemon Pickle

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Pare the lemons thinly, avoiding the white part.

  2. Slit each lemon at both ends about 1 inch deep and rub in as much salt as possible.

  3. Place the lemons in an earthen pot for 3 days, covering them with more salt.

Dry the garlic and horseradish

  1. Add the garlic and horseradish, and dry them in a slow oven until moisture is gone.

Make the pickle

  1. Boil the vinegar with cloves and cayenne pepper, then let it cool.

  2. Stir in the mustard flour and pour it over the dried lemons, garlic, and horseradish.

  3. If the mixture thickens over time, stir in 1 pint of cold vinegar.

Age and filter

  1. After 6 months, filter through paper until clear.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Garlic + horseradishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Provide the main flavor and acidity, and are preserved in salt and vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the lemons and helps preserve them.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and flavor that mellows during drying and aging.
Horseradish
Adds sharp pungency and aroma to the pickle.
Vinegar
Acts as the main preserving liquid and adds sharp acidity.
Mustard flour
Adds sharp heat and flavor and helps thicken the liquid.

The step that matters

Drying the garlic and horseradish until moisture is gone. Any remaining moisture can dilute the vinegar and encourage spoilage during aging. Drying in a slow oven removes water gently, so the pieces dry without scorching.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, garlic, horseradish, vinegar, pepper, mustard, flour):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, garlic, horseradish, vinegar, pepper, mustard, flour. 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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