Name: Eggs, to Preserve
Ingredients: 2 or 3 limestones (about the size of half bricks); sufficient cold water; mutton fat (liquid); bran or sawdust (for layering eggs); 1 pound of lime; 2 gallons of water

Why it works: Mutton and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,648 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Eggs, to Preserve

Ingredients

2 or 3 limestones (about the size of half bricks)
sufficient cold water
mutton fat (liquid)
bran or sawdust (for layering eggs)
1 pound of lime
2 gallons of water

Directions

Pour cold water over the limestones and stir for 3-4 days. Let it settle.
Pour the clear water into an earthen vessel and place the eggs inside.
Layer the eggs in a box or basket filled with bran or sawdust, with the small end downwards.
Render the mutton fat until liquid and brush it over each egg to fill the pores of the shell.
Mix lime with boiling water to slack it, then add cold water to make 2 gallons.
Place sound, fresh, and clean eggs in a pine barrel and cover them with lime-water.
Check the barrel regularly to ensure 4 inches of water covers the lime.
Pour boiling water over fresh eggs for 5 seconds, then dry and pack them in boxes of bran.

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.

Mutton + eggtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,648 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mutton + limetop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together99 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Egg + limetop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,658 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).