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Pickled Lemons

Lemons pickled in vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. Cut the lemons three-quarters of an inch down into two cross-cuts at the stem end.

  2. Place the lemons in a covered jar with the vinegar, spices, and salt.

Cook

  1. Set the jar in a kettle of water and boil until the lemons are tender enough to pass a knitting needle through them.

Use

  1. Use the vinegar for cooking fish and veal.

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

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

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemons
Provide the main flavor and aromatic peel that is softened during the long cooking.
Cider vinegar
Acts as the pickling liquid that preserves the lemons and gives them a sharp, tangy taste.
Fine salt
Seasons the brine and helps draw flavor into the lemons.
Black mustard seed
Adds a pungent, slightly bitter heat that infuses into the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil until tender. The lemons must be cooked until a knitting needle passes through them easily. Underdone lemons stay tough and bitter, while the gentle heat of the water bath softens the peel and lets the vinegar and spices penetrate.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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