Pickled eggs. Easy, right? Eggs, vinegar, how hard can it be?
That’s a fair point. It’s pretty much that easy. But as always, there are some details that can help to know.
Pickle brine ingredients for 12 large eggs.
1 cup / 240ml water
1 cup / 240ml vinegar
1 tablespoon pickling spice
1/4 teaspoon salt
Put all ingredients together in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, cut the heat, and let the brine steep overnight while your 12 hard boiled eggs are chilling out in the fridge.
Next day, peel the eggs and place in a suitable container. Pour the brine over via sieve to remove the spices. Allow the eggs to steep in the brine for between 1 and 7 days. The longer they steep, the deeper into the egg the brine flavour will penetrate. Eat out of hand, chopped into a salad, or turn it into pickled egg salad.
Simple, right? Hah! Hold on a minute. Which vinegar do you use?
Unsurprisingly the vinegar you use directly affects the flavour. Here’s the ones I tested with:
white vinegar: sharply tangy, the gold standard of vinegar, but no real flavour
white wine vinegar: a touch more flavour than white vinegar, but not a lot more
red wine vinegar: more flavour than either the above, also stains the eggs a fetching red
malt vinegar: richer than red wine, stains the eggs a rather nice brown (NOTE: NOT GLUTEN FREE)
balsamic vinegar: oh, so much going on here! Caramel flavours as well as staining the egg white an astonishing black! Also astonishing is what happens to the vinegar: it goes transparent as the eggs absorb almost all of the colour from the vinegar
Over to you. What vinegar do you prefer?
Follow
