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To Pickle Lemons, and Limes

A pickled lemon recipe using salt, turmeric, garlic, onions, vinegar, ginger, pepper, mustard seed, and capsicums.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

To Pickle Lemons, and Limes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Wipe the lemons clean and make four deep incisions in each, from the stalk to the blossom end, without dividing the fruit.

  2. Stuff the lemons with salt and place them in a deep dish in a sunny spot for 7 to 10 days.

  3. Turn and baste the lemons with their own juice often.

  4. Rub the lemons with turmeric and place them in a stone jar with garlic and onions.

Pickle and seal

  1. Boil the vinegar, ginger, black pepper, and mustard seed together.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the lemons.

  3. Cover the jar with a plate.

  4. Let it sit overnight.

  5. The next day, add the capsicums.

  6. Seal the jar with a skin and thick paper.

  7. For immediate use, place the lemons in a cool oven overnight.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Turmeric + clovetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Their juice and peel are the main flavour, and salting draws out juice that softens the rind.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the lemons and preserves them against spoilage.
White wine vinegar
Acidity that preserves the lemons and sharpens the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed
Adds pungency and sharp flavour to the pickling liquid.
Black pepper
Adds warm, pungent aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Salting and turning the lemons. Salt must fully penetrate the cut fruit and the lemons must be turned and basted often, or they can spoil or cure unevenly before the pickling liquid is added.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turmeric, garlic, clove, onion, white wine, vinegar, ginger):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Plumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turmeric, garlic, clove, onion, white wine, vinegar, ginger. 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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