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Preserve

To Preserve Eggs

A method of preserving eggs by packing them in coarse salt and covering them with a cooled lime solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

To Preserve Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Dip eggs in melted suet.

  2. Pack eggs in a jar with the smaller end downwards.

  3. Layer the eggs with coarse sea salt.

Make the lime solution

  1. Pour boiling water over unslacked lime.

  2. Cool the lime solution thoroughly.

Preserve and store

  1. Pour the lime solution over the packed eggs, avoiding the sediment.

  2. Store in a cool, dark 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. 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

Eggs
The main food being preserved; the packing and lime solution change its texture and flavour over time.
Unslacked lime
Creates the strongly alkaline solution that slowly sets the egg white and preserves the eggs.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the eggs while they cure.

The step that matters

Cool the lime solution thoroughly. Pouring hot lime solution over the eggs can cook them or crack the shells. Cooling lets the solution settle and sediment fall out before it is poured over the eggs.

“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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