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To Preserve Eggs

A method of preserving eggs by soaking them in a lime, cream of tartar, and salt solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

To Preserve Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Pack and cover

  1. Pack the eggs in a jar small end downward.

  2. Mix slaked lime, cream of tartar, and salt in a bowl.

  3. Pour the mixture over the eggs until they are covered.

Seal and store

  1. Seal the jar and store it in a cool place.

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. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Lime + creamtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together740 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Egg + limetop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
The protein is changed by the alkaline solution, setting the white into a firm gel.
Slaked lime
Its alkalinity slowly penetrates the shell and transforms the egg white and yolk.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture until the eggs are fully covered. The shell is porous, so alkali passes through it gradually. Any egg left exposed cures unevenly, leaving parts of the egg unpreserved or spoiled.

Swap the lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream. 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.

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