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Preserving Eggs

This recipe preserves fresh eggs by boiling water with salt, saltpetre, and quick lime, then submerging eggs in the cooled solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lime and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 34% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,658 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Preserving Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. Boil the cold water, coarse sea salt, and saltpetre together for about 20 minutes.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add the pounded quick lime.

  3. Stir the mixture twice a day for three days.

Pack the eggs

  1. Place fresh eggs in a jar with the small end down.

  2. Pour the mixture over the eggs.

  3. Ensure the lime covers the eggs by at least 2 inches.

  4. Add additional layers of eggs as needed.

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. Lime + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh eggs
Provide the food being preserved, and are set by the alkaline mixture over time.
Pounded quick lime
Makes the mixture strongly alkaline, which changes the eggs during curing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the eggs and helps preserve them.

The step that matters

Keep the eggs fully covered. Eggs exposed above the mixture can spoil, since the salt and alkaline lime only protect the parts they fully cover. Keeping every egg at least 2 inches under the mixture ensures even curing and reduces the risk of spoilage.

“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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