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Preserve

For Preserving Eggs

This method preserves eggs by soaking them in a solution of unslaked lime and coarse sea salt.

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 ↓

For Preserving Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. In a large container, mix 1 pint of unslaked lime and 1 pint of coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour 1 pail of boiling water into the mixture and stir until dissolved.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool.

Pack the eggs

  1. Place the eggs in a jar or tub with the small end facing down.

  2. Pour the cooled mixture over the eggs to cover them completely.

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

Unslaked lime
Makes the mixture strongly alkaline, which slowly transforms the egg white and yolk.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the eggs and helps inhibit spoilage during preserving.
Eggs
The main food being preserved; the white and yolk firm up as they cure.

The step that matters

Pour the cooled mixture over the eggs to cover them completely.. The brine must be cool so it does not crack or partly cook the shells, and the eggs must stay fully submerged. Anything exposed to air can spoil, so full coverage keeps the curing even.

“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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