Name: Lemon Pickle
Ingredients: 6 lemons; 1 pound coarse sea salt; 6 large cloves of garlic

Why it works: Lemon and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,893 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lemon Pickle

Oven, in the book's wordsA very cool oven

Ingredients

6 lemons
1 pound coarse sea salt
6 large cloves of garlic

Directions

Prepare

Wipe the lemons clean.
Cut each lemon into eight pieces.

Pack and store

Place the lemon pieces in a jar.
Add the salt and garlic cloves.
Seal the jar and store it in a cool, dark place.

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.

Lemon + garlictop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,893 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,368 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons: Provide the main fruit and their acidic juice, which softens as the pickle sits.
Coarse sea salt: Draws moisture out of the lemons and helps preserve them during storage.
Garlic: Adds pungent aroma that mellows and infuses the lemons over time.