Skip to main content
Main

Pickled Eggs

Pickled eggs preserved in a spiced vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs until hard.

  2. Place the eggs in cold water and remove the shells.

Pickle

  1. In a jar, layer the eggs with mace, cloves, allspice, and whole pepper.

  2. Season the vinegar with coarse sea salt to taste and heat it.

  3. Pour the cooled vinegar over the eggs 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 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

Eggs
The main ingredient, whose firm white absorbs the flavour of the pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives pickled eggs their tang and helps preserve them.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Adds a strong, warm aroma to the pickling liquid.
Allspice
Adds a blended warm aroma to the pickling liquid.
Whole pepper
Adds gentle heat and spice aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pour the cooled vinegar over the eggs. Pouring in vinegar that is still hot can cook the egg whites further and make them rubbery. Letting it cool first keeps the texture tender while the spices and acid slowly flavour the eggs.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, clove, allspice, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, clove, allspice, pepper, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes