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Lemon Pickle

A pickled lemon preserved with salt, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Lemon Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Quarter the lemons and remove the seeds.

  2. Place the lemons in a jar and sprinkle with salt.

  3. Cover the jar and let it sit for 3 days.

Add spices and pickle

  1. Add sliced nutmegs, cloves, mace, and mustard seed.

  2. Boil the vinegar and pour it over the ingredients.

  3. Cork the jar tightly and let it sit for a week before using.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Provide the main flavour and the citrus peel and pulp that soften during pickling.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the lemons and helps preserve them while they cure.
Vinegar
Acidifies the mixture, helping preserve the lemons and giving them a sharp tang.
Nutmegs
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses the lemons during pickling.

The step that matters

Cork the jar tightly and let it sit for a week. Sealing the jar keeps air out and holds the aromatics in, while the week of rest lets salt and vinegar penetrate the lemon and mellow the flavours before use.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, nutmeg, clove, mustard, vinegar. 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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