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Dessert

Lemon Pickle

A preserved pickle made by cutting lemons, salting, and baking them in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 538 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. 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 each lemon into four parts without cutting through the rind.

  2. Fill the incisions with salt.

  3. Let them sit for a week.

  4. Rinse the lemons to remove excess salt.

Stew and pickle

  1. Place the lemons in a jar.

  2. Cover the lemons with good vinegar, adding saffron, mace, and a clove.

  3. Cover the jar.

  4. Stew the lemons in a 300°F (150°C) oven for about 3 hours until tender.

  5. Remove the lemons.

  6. Add fresh vinegar to the jar.

  7. Boil white peppercorns and cayenne in the vinegar.

  8. Cut the lemons into 8 pieces.

  9. Pour the vinegar mixture over the lemons.

  10. Seal the jar.

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 + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Saffron + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Their rind and pulp soften during stewing and make up the body of the pickle.
Salt
Draws out moisture and firms the lemons while they cure.
Good vinegar
Acidity preserves the lemons and carries the flavour of the spices.
White peppercorns
Boiled in the vinegar to give a sharp, warm pungency to the pickle.
Cayenne
Adds heat to the vinegar, giving the pickle a spicy finish.

The step that matters

Rinsing after the salt cure. Rinsing removes excess surface salt so the pickle is not overly salty. Salt drawn into the lemons is what firms and preserves them, so the rinse should remove only the surface excess.

Swap the mace

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

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

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