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To Preserve Eggs

A method of preserving eggs using mutton suet, bran, quicklime, salt, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and cream work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 550 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Preserve Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Grease the eggs all over with melted mutton suet.

  2. Wedge the eggs close together with the small end downward in a box of bran.

Make the preserving mixture

  1. Pour 1 gallon of boiling water over 2 quarts of quicklime and ½ pound of coarse sea salt.

  2. When the mixture is cold, mix in 1 ounce of cream of tartar.

Preserve

  1. The following day, place the eggs in the mixture.

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. Mutton + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together550 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton suet
Forms a fat coating over the shell that helps seal its pores.
Bran
Packs the eggs and keeps them steady and separated while they rest.
Quicklime
Reacts with water to form a strongly alkaline solution that helps preserve the eggs.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out and inhibits spoilage in the preserving mixture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before adding the eggs. Quicklime reacts strongly with water and releases heat, so the mixture must be cold before the eggs go in. Adding it while hot could damage 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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