Wipe eight fine sound lemons very clean, and make, at equal distances, four deep incisions in each, from the stalk to the blossom end, but without dividing the fruit; stuff them with as much salt as they will contain, lay them into a deep dish, and place them in a sunny window, or in some warm place for a week or ten days, keeping them often turned and basted with their own liquor; then rub them with some good pale turmeric, and put them with their juice, into a stone jar with a small head of garlic, divided into cloves and peeled, and a dozen small onions stuck with twice as many cloves. Boil in two quarts of white wine vinegar, half a pound of ginger slightly bruised, two ounces of whole black pepper, and half a pound of mustard-seed; take them from the fire and pour them directly on the lemons; cover the jar with a plate, and let them remain until the following day, then add to the pickle half a dozen capsicums (or a few chilies, if more convenient), and tie a skin and a fold of thick paper over the jar.
Large lemons stuffed with salt, 8: 8 to 10 days. Turmeric, 1 to 2 oz.; ginger, 1/2 lb.; mustard-seed, 1/2 lb.; capsicums, 6 oz.
Obs.—The turmeric and garlic may, we think, be omitted from this pickle with advantage. It will remain good for seven years if the lemons be kept well covered with vinegar: that which is added to them should be boiled and then left till cold before it is poured into the jar. They will not be fit for table in less than twelve months; but if wanted for more immediate use, set them for one night into a very cool oven: they may then be eaten almost directly.
Limes must have but slight incisions made in the rinds; and they will be sufficiently softened in four or five days. Two ounces of salt only will be required for half a dozen; and all which remains unmelted must, with their juice, be put into the jar with them before the vinegar is poured on: this should be mixed with spice and mustard-seed, and be boiling when it is added to the limes.
LEMON MANGOES.
(Author’s Original Receipt.)
All pickles of vegetables or fruit which have been emptied and filled with various ingredients, are called in England mangoes, having probably first been prepared in imitation of that fruit, but none that we have ever tasted, bearing the slightest resemblance to it. Young melons, large cucumbers, vegetable-marrow, and peaches are all thus designated when prepared as we have described. Lemons may be converted into an excellent pickle of the same description in the following manner.
After having removed from the blossom end of each a circular bit of the rind about the size of a shilling, proceed to scoop out all the pulp and skin with the handle of a teaspoon; rinse the insides of the rinds until the water from them is clear; throw them into plenty of brine made with half a pound of salt to two quarts of water, and stir them down in it often during the time. In three days change the brine, and leave them for three days longer; then drain them from it on a sieve, fill them with bruised or whole mustard-seed, very small chilies, young scraped horseradish, very small eschalots, a little ginger sliced thin, or aught else that may be liked. Sew in the parts that have been cut out, lay the lemons into a stone jar, and pour boiling on them a pickle made of their own juice, which when they are first emptied should be squeezed from the pulp through a cloth, and boiled with sufficient vinegar to keep it,—a large saltspoonful of salt, half an ounce each of ginger and of white peppercorns, and a blade or two of mace to every quart; or prepare them like the whole lemons, omitting the turmeric; and soften them if wanted for immediate eating as directed for them. They may be filled simply with mustard-seed, horseradish, and spice, if preferred so.
This receipt has been in print before, but without the author’s name.