Matthew Skinner : Culinary Blog: Getting myself into a real pickle!

Years and years ago, before the modern day refrigeration that we now cannot live without, people kept their food for long periods of time by using various methods of preserving. These methods include, pickling, fermenting, preserving, and curing just to name a few. These were natural ways to keep your food from spoiling when people did have the ability to freeze or refrigerate their food. These methods are still used today in every part of the world, even here in North America. Although, I feel these things are done here mainly to keep traditions alive and not for practically we almost everyone here has the luxury of owning a freezer or refrigerator. But none the less these practice were once a very important part of our food culture and still are which is why I decided to try my hand at it.

I decided to make an old pub favourite, pickled eggs. I had always been under the impression that they probably do not taste very good until I was forced to try them once and have liked them ever since. The chosen method of preservation here is of course pickling. I already had some inclination as to how the process worked but did some research just to make sure I was going to do it correctly and safely to not run the risk of something like botulism. I have a friend whose father has been pickling eggs for years and I received some insight from him. I did not even need to go online to find any specific recipe. I wanted to attempt to recreate a century egg look on my eggs but it did not turn out too well. I cracked the shells but did not completely peel them off and soaked them in tea overnight. When it was time to take the shell off, the coloured pattern that should of been left on the egg came off with the shell.

The recipe I used is as follows:
10 white eggs
1 cup of white vinegar
1/2 cup of water
2 tablespoons of coarse salt
2 tablespoons of pickling spice
3 cloves garlic
1 Hot chili pepper; My first step was to hard boil the eggs, make enough tea to cover the eggs, crack the egg shells without removing them and soak them in the tea over night. The following day I removed the shells from the eggs. I boiled my mason jar and also put the vinegar, water, salt, pickling spice, garlic, and chili pepper in a pot and brought it all to a boil. I put the eggs into the jar and poured the boiling liquids and spices into the jar and quickly put the lid on the jar. Before refrigerating I let the jar cool to room temperature. Once the jar completely cooled down the lid became air tight. I refrigerated the eggs for about 4-5 days before opening the jar and trying one. To be perfectly honest, I would probably never make pickled eggs again. They tasted mainly of vinegar, and although they were good I would rather just eat a pickle. The next time I try to pickle something I will most likely make dill pickles as they are one of my favourite things to eat. Pickling is a fairly simple process and you can pickle just about anything. I hope from reading my blog you become encouraged to go and try pickling for yourself!

hard boiling the eggs