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Pickled Lemons

A preserved lemon dish made by salting, brining, and pickling lemons with vinegar, spices, mustard seed, and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Lemons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Rub the lemons with a piece of flannel.

  2. Slit each lemon halfway down into four quarters, but do not cut through to the pulp.

  3. Fill the slits with coarse sea salt, pressing it in hard.

  4. Set the lemons upright in a pan for 4 to 5 days until the salt melts.

  5. Turn the lemons three times a day in their own liquid until tender.

Make the pickle

  1. Make enough pickle to cover the lemons using rape vinegar, the brine from the lemons, Jamaica pepper, and ginger.

  2. Boil and skim the pickle mixture, then let it cool.

Pickle and store

  1. Pour the cooled pickle over the lemons, adding mustard seed and garlic.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Mustard + garlictop 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
Their thick rind and pulp are softened by salt and turned into a tender, sour preserve.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out liquid and softens the rind, and preserves the lemons during the salting period.
Rape vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the lemons and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp aroma and flavour to the pickle.
Garlic
Adds aromatic pungency that deepens the flavour of the pickle.

The step that matters

Turning the lemons until tender. The lemons must soften fully in their own salty liquid before pickling. Turning them keeps every surface evenly in contact with the brine, so the rind softens throughout rather than only in spots.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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