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Pickled Lemons

A pickled lemon recipe using sea salt, vinegar, and spices.

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 them halfway into quarters, but not through to the pulp.

  3. Fill the slits with pressed coarse sea salt.

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

  5. Turn them thrice daily in their own liquid.

Make the pickle

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

  2. Boil and skim the pickle.

  3. When cold, pour the pickle over the lemons along with 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 rinds and pulp are salted and softened over days, becoming tender and pickled throughout.
Coarse sea salt
Draws liquid out of the lemons and preserves them, softening the rind as the salt melts.
Rape vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the lemons and sharpens the flavour of the pickle.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavour to the pickle as it infuses the lemons.
Garlic
Adds aromatic pungency that deepens the flavour of the pickle.

The step that matters

Turning the lemons thrice daily while the salt melts. The salt must dissolve and draw juice out evenly so the lemons cure in their own liquid. Turning them keeps every surface in contact with the brine, so the rind softens evenly instead of unevenly.

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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