Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
To Pickle Lemons
Ingredients
Directions
Rub the lemon rinds with flannel and slit them down halfway in four quarters without cutting into the pulp.
Fill the slits with coarse sea salt and set the lemons upright in a pan until the salt melts.
Turn the lemons every day in the liquid they produce until they are tender.
Make a pickle by combining vinegar with the brine, black pepper, ginger, and mustard seed; boil, skim, and let it cool.
Pour the cooled pickle over the lemons.
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.
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,154 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,067 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,800 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,430 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, vinegar, pepper, mustard):
- Tarragonfits better
- Dillfits better
- Thymefits better
- Gingerthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, vinegar, pepper, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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