FAQ | Egg Man Pickled Eggs (2024)

FAQs

What is the story behind pickled eggs? ›

A hard-boiled egg cured in vinegar or brine and sealed in a jar could last for months as a tasty and affordable bar snack. German saloon owners had first introduced pickled eggs – along with lagers, which also had a longer shelf life – to working-class America in the mid-1880s.

Pickled eggs are a brilliant invention. Born out of the need to preserve eggs while also enhancing their flavor. The process involves immersing hard-boiled and peeled eggs in a flavorful pickling liquid, typically consisting of vinegar, spices, and other seasonings.

Give the eggs at least 24 hours in the pickling brine before you eat one. That way, the flavors have time to penetrate the egg. A few days is even better.

Glass canning jars work well. A quart-size canning jar will hold about one dozen medium-sized eggs. Pickled eggs need to be hard-boiled and peeled prior to making the brine solution of vinegar, salt, spices, and other seasonings. Pickled eggs MUST be always stored in the refrigerator.

Eggs represent new life and rebirth, and it's thought that this ancient custom became a part of Easter celebrations. In the medieval period, eating eggs was forbidden during Lent (the 40 days before Easter) so on Easter Sunday, tucking into an egg was a real treat!

While recipes can vary from brand to brand, store-bought pickled eggs are often submerged in pickling solutions consisting of ingredients like beet juice, vinegar, water, and sugar. Commercial pickled eggs can also contain sodium benzoate, which is a common preservative that keeps food stable on store shelves.

The strong, tangy flavor of pickled foods might not complement the subtlety of eggs. Moreover, the spicy flavor overpowers the taste of eggs.

Pickled eggs are a great healthy snack to have in the fridge.

Red pickled eggs get their color from beet juice and can also be the base for deviled eggs or sliced to serve with a salad. These beet juice pickled eggs have a bit of a sweet and sour taste.

Most pickle recipes call for distilled white vinegar. This is the clear, colorless vinegar made by fermenting grains. It has a mellow aroma, tart acid flavor and does not affect the color of light-colored vegetables or fruits.

Why are my pickled eggs brown? ›

Malt vinegar imparts a nice rounded vinegar flavour and the eggs take on a nice brown colour after a week or so.

Reusing Brine. Some of the fun of pickled eggs is that they can adopt all sorts of brine—even leftovers from other pickles.

And If the eggs sit in that liquid too long, you get rubbery eggs. There's a simple enough way to avoid this problem. You want the pickling liquid to do its job in the beginning, and then after the eggs have reached the proper degree of pickling, you can dilute the solution with some water.

Then, put the whole beets on top of the eggs. The reason why I put the eggs first is so that the beets will block the eggs from floating to the top when you add the brine, which will make the eggs pickle evenly.

While you may see home-canned pickled eggs for purchase, it is actually not safe to can pickled eggs at home. In fact, home-pickled eggs stored at room temperature were linked to a case of botulism — so just imagine long term shelf storage of canned pickled eggs!

Pickled eggs were widely made and eaten by Germans as early as the mid-1700s. They were a popular food with German immigrants, especially the Hessian mercenaries fighting against Colonists during the Revolutionary War. Many early recipes come from the Pennsylvania Dutch.

The vinegar contains ethanoic acid (also known as acetic acid), which reacts with calcium carbonate in the eggshell. One product of the reaction is carbon dioxide gas, which appears as little bubbles forming on the eggshell. Over time, this chemical reaction dissolves away the hard eggshell.

It is believed that the an amino acid called cysteine present in the eggs, aids the functioning of the liver and works well to prevent excessive hangovers. This is followed by the simple logic that when you're munching on something while taking a drink, it helps to mellow down the effect of the booze.

How fermented eggs were discovered is undocumented, but it is believed that they were invented out of the need to preserve eggs over a period of time. Scientists have estimated that their origin dates back 600 years, at the time of the reign of the Ming Dynasty in China.