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Lemon Pickle

A pickled lemon condiment made with salt, garlic, mace, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, allspice, mustard flour, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Lemon Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut each lemon into six pieces.

  2. Sprinkle the salt over the lemons.

  3. Add garlic, mace, nutmeg, cayenne, allspice, and mustard flour.

Make the pickle

  1. Pour in the vinegar and boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Transfer to a jar and let it sit for 8 weeks, stirring daily.

Bottle

  1. After 8 weeks, pour into small bottles and seal tightly.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Provide sour acidity, juice, and aromatic peel oils that flavor the pickle.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that softens the lemons and helps preserve the pickle.
Garlic
Contributes pungent, savory aroma that deepens as the pickle rests.
Mustard flour
Adds sharp, pungent flavor and a bit of heat.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, sweet aroma.

The step that matters

Letting the jar rest the full 8 weeks, stirred daily. Salt and vinegar work slowly to soften the lemon and draw out and blend the spice flavors. Stirring spreads the seasonings through the jar. Bottling early leaves the pickle harsh, uneven, and less mellow.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, clove, garlic, nutmeg, pepper, allspice, mustard):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, clove, garlic, nutmeg, pepper, allspice, mustard. 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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