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
Mix the unslacked lime and salt with the water in a large container.
Pack and store
Pack the fresh eggs in stone jars.
Once the mixture has settled, pour it over the eggs in the jars.
Store the jars in a place where they will not freeze.
The eggs will keep for months and remain fresh.
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.
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Lime + eggtop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Unslacked lime
- Creates a strongly alkaline brine that preserves the eggs by slowing spoilage.
- Salt
- Adds salinity to the brine, helping preserve the eggs alongside the lime.
- Fresh eggs
- The food being preserved; their shells let the brine soak in slowly through them.
The step that matters
Store the jars where they will not freeze. Freezing can crack the shells and damage the eggs, so the jars must stay above freezing for the preservation to work safely.
“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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