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Lemon Pickle

A pickled lemon preparation using salt, turmeric, garlic, shallots, vinegar, ginger, and peppercorns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Lemon Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemons

  1. Wipe the lemons dry and cut four lengthwise incisions and one around the middle of each lemon.

  2. Fill the incisions with coarse sea salt.

  3. Place the lemons in an earthen pan in a sunny spot for a week, turning them occasionally.

Pack and pickle

  1. After a week, sprinkle the turmeric over the lemons and divide them into quarters.

  2. Add the garlic cloves and shallots, each stuck with a clove, to a jar.

  3. Boil the vinegar with bruised ginger and black peppercorns.

  4. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the lemons in the jar.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Turmeric + shallottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 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
Salting and sun-curing soften the peel and rind, mellowing the sharp citrus flavour over time.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the lemons and seasons the flesh as the pickle cures.
White vinegar
Acidity preserves the lemons and sharpens the pickle while the hot liquid carries the spices.
Turmeric
Adds a golden colour and earthy flavour to the lemons.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion-like flavour that softens as the pickle matures.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during pickling.

The step that matters

Salting and sun-curing the lemons. The salt must reach the flesh through the incisions and the lemons need the full week in the sun to soften. Under-salting or cutting the week short leaves the pickle harsh and less preserved.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turmeric, garlic, shallot, vinegar, ginger):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Mangofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turmeric, garlic, shallot, vinegar, ginger. 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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