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Lemon Peel, to Preserve for Garnishing
Cut lemon-rind into thin slices. Prepare a syrup by boiling a pint of sugar with three-quarters of a pint of water until the sugar is dissolved. Put in the rind, and simmer both together for a quarter of an hour. When cool, put into pots, cover closely, and store in a cool, dry place. Lemon thus prepared is useful for garnishing dishes. Probable cost of lemons, 1d. each.
A simple syrup-preserved lemon zest, meant to be kept on hand as a garnish rather than eaten as a sweet. Two things need translating: the volume measure for sugar, and the storage advice.
- The pint is ImperialCassell's pint is 20 fl oz, not 16. A pint of granulated sugar measured by volume is therefore roughly 17 to 18 oz (about 2 1/2 cups by US measure), and three-quarters of an Imperial pint of water is about 1 3/4 cups.
- Take the zest only"Lemon-rind" here means the yellow outer layer. Any white pith left attached turns bitter and goes soft and cloudy in the syrup. A vegetable peeler, then a knife to cut the strips into fine julienne, gives the neat threads intended for garnishing.
- Dissolve, then reduce heatThe syrup should be clear before the peel goes in, and it should never do more than barely simmer afterwards. A hard boil concentrates the syrup fast, and the strips curl and toughen rather than turning translucent.
- A quarter of an hour is right hereFifteen minutes is about correct: thin zest needs that long to lose its raw bitterness and take up syrup. Test a strip; it should be tender and slightly glassy at the edge.
- The syrup is not strong enough to keep at room temperatureThe syrup is not strong enough to keep reliably at room temperature -- at roughly equal weights of sugar and water it comes out somewhat below the 60-odd percent sugar usually reckoned enough to hold off mould in a "cool, dry place", though the simmering will concentrate it a little. An unheated Victorian larder would also have been colder than a modern cupboard. Store it in a clean jar in the refrigerator and use within a month.
- Drain if you want candied peelAs written this is peel suspended in syrup, ready to lift out with a fork. For dry candied strips, drain them, roll in caster sugar and leave on a rack overnight.
A standing garnish, kept in the larder to be pulled out whenever a dish looked plain. Nineteenth-century service leaned heavily on such visual finishes. Preserving citrus peel in sugar syrup is far older than this book -- the technique is generally traced from the medieval Arab world into European confectionery, where succade and candied citron were luxury imports long before household cooks made their own. The "probable cost of lemons, 1d. each" is the interesting detail: lemons were arriving in Britain cheaply enough by this date to be a penny apiece, cheap enough that the peel was worth putting up simply for decoration.