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Pickled Eggs

Pickled eggs with sliced beets in a vinegar brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pickled Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the eggs and beets

  1. Boil the eggs for 15 minutes.

  2. Transfer the eggs to cold water and shell them.

  3. Boil the red beets.

  4. Slice the boiled beets.

Pickle

  1. Place the sliced beets in a jar with the eggs.

  2. Heat the vinegar.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and spices to the vinegar.

  4. Pour the vinegar mixture over the eggs.

  5. Keep the jar tightly covered.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Form the main body of the dish, becoming firm when boiled and absorbing the pickling liquid.
Red beets
Add colour and a mild earthy sweetness that tints the eggs as they sit.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the eggs and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the vinegar mixture over the eggs. The eggs need to be fully submerged in the pickling liquid, because any part exposed to air can spoil and will not take on colour or flavour evenly.

“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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