Posted: 1/28/2010 5:28:06 PM EDT
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Quick question,
I have my leftover pickle juice from my jar of clausens, and I am wondering if I can throw some hardboiled eggs in there and wind up with pickled eggs. I used to throw some in with my pepperocinis, and after a week the eggs seemed to become pickled. Do you all think this is effective? What kind of preservation can I expect? Enough to not require refrigeration? Or if it's easier, point me to your favorite pickling website and I'll study up! Thanks! |
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Claussen brine is pretty weak. Dropping eggs into any store-bought leavings like that is pretty much going to require that you refrigerate it.
I pickle my eggs as follows: Boil up the eggs you want. Cool and peel. I can usually fit five or six large eggs in a wide mouth pint. I like red pickled eggs, so I do the following: Two cans beets. Cut up beets, put aside. Save the liquid from one can. Thin slice an onion. Slice rings in half to form crescents. Sterilize and preheat your pint jars. Layer some onion and beets in the bottom of the hot pint jars. Drop the eggs (using clean gloves) into the jars, gently arranging them to fit five or six in each, leaving half to quarter inch headspace. You don't want to have to mash the lid down. In a stainless pot, bring to boil enough cider vinegar to fill the prepared pints and, the reserved beet liquid, and pickling salt. (I find that three cups vinegar and three tablespoons salt will fill about four packed pints.) Add boiling brine to jars. Place rings and lids. At this point, you can put these in the fridge once they've cooled, and they will keep. You'll want to let them set up for a month or so to get that really good pickled flavor. I usually hot pack mine for 20 minutes at a rolling boil, and store them in the cupboard. I cannot, however, recommend that you do this; neither will any published source of canning recipes. In fact, I have never been able to find a hot pack or pressure can recipe for eggs, since apparently everyone has decided that unrefrigerated eggs turn immediately to rubbery grenades filled with pure botulism toxin. (This stems from the pH difference between the brine outside the egg, and the yolk of the egg, which has a pH within the range that botulism toxin is produced.) |
