Name: To Preserve Eggs
Ingredients: 4 quarts slacked lime; 2 tablespoons cream of tartar; 2 tablespoons salt; eggs

Why it works: Cream and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

To Preserve Eggs

Ingredients

4 quarts slacked lime
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
2 tablespoons salt
eggs

Directions

Prepare the eggs

Pack eggs in a jar small end downward.
Mix slaked lime, cream of tartar, and salt in a bowl.
Pour the mixture over the eggs in the jar.

Seal and store

Seal the jar to preserve the eggs for several months.

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.

Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Lime + creamtop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together740 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Lime + eggtop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,658 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Slacked lime: Its alkalinity raises the pH of the eggs, which preserves them and firms the white.
Eggs: The main food being preserved; the alkaline mixture slowly changes their white and yolk texture.