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Citron Preserve

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Citron Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the citron into thin slices and soak in a weak brine overnight.

  2. Place the soaked slices in fresh water and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour off the water and replace with fresh water, repeating if necessary.

  4. Prepare a syrup by boiling water and sugar together.

  5. Add the sliced citron to the boiling syrup and cook for about 45 minutes.

  6. Adjust the sweetness by adding more sugar or cooking longer to your taste.

  7. Optionally, add lemon or orange juice for flavor if preserving for future use.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

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