Why it works: Egg and lime 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 ↓
Keeping Eggs Fresh
Ingredients
Directions
Pack the eggs
Place 2–3 inches of plaster at the bottom of the vessel.
Stand fresh eggs upright, small end down, without crowding.
Add more plaster to support the eggs and create additional layers until the vessel is full.
Cover the top layer of eggs with plaster.
Make the lime water
For lime water, mix 1 pint of unslacked lime and 1 pint of coarse salt in a pail of water.
Store the eggs in this lime water in a cool place, making fresh lime water every few months.
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.
-
Egg + limetop 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
- Fresh eggs
- The food being preserved; the packing and lime water keep them from spoiling over time.
- Unslacked lime
- Makes the surrounding water strongly alkaline, which helps keep the eggs from spoiling.
- Coarse salt
- Adds to the preserving liquid, helping to inhibit microbial growth in the lime water.
The step that matters
Keep the eggs covered and submerged in lime water in a cool place. Lime water is what preserves the eggs, so the eggs must stay fully covered in fresh solution. Replacing it every few months keeps its strength steady, and a cool place slows spoilage.
“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.
More egg preservation recipes
You might also like
Green Corn Pudding64 recipes
Cornmeal mush12 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.