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Pickled Lemons

Lemons are pickled in vinegar, salt, cloves, nutmeg, mace, cayenne pepper, mustard seed, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg 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 ↓

Pickled Lemons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lemons and place them in a muslin bag.

  2. Add salt, vinegar, cloves, nutmeg, mace, cayenne, mustard seed, and onion to the bag.

  3. Seal the bag and place it in a tight, covered jar.

Cook and rest

  1. Submerge the jar in a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Let it simmer until the lemons are tender.

  3. For best flavor, allow the pickled lemons to sit for three months 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Provide the main flesh and peel that soften and absorb the pickling liquid.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the lemons and helps preserve them.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the lemons and sharpens their flavor.
Mustard seed
Adds pungent, sharp flavor to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering until the lemons are tender. Heating the sealed jar in boiling water softens the thick peel so it can absorb the vinegar and spices. Under-cooked lemons stay tough and bitter, so the cook should check for tenderness rather than rely on time alone.

Swap the mace

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

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

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