How to turn eggs into a traditional British pub snack

The Guardian

08-02-2025

At Yeo Valley's Good Food and Eating Well conference last year, Christine Storry of the Dynamic Food Board, a UK body that promotes sustainable, local food procurement, estimated that 'more than 700 million eggs are wasted in the UK each year'; that's roughly 45,000 tonnes, or almost equivalent to the weight of the Titanic. She also noted that only 22% of us know how to test if an egg is fresh and safe to eat.
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To keep them at their best, store eggs in a cool place at a stable temperature below 20C, because fluctuating heat and direct sunlight can affect their quality. To test a raw egg's freshness, put it in a bowl of water: if it sinks and lies flat, it's fresh; if it stands upright, it's safe but needs eating soon; and if it floats, it's past its best, so feed it to the compost monster.
If you have a surfeit of eggs, you can boil them to prolong their life for a further four or five days in the fridge, but to preserve them for even longer, I like to make pickled eggs using a few spices to give them lots of flavour.
I grew up in a small village in Dorset where there wasn't a whole lot to do: when we weren't cycling around and rambling through the forest, my best friend, Luke, and I would frequent Thorncombe sports club, where we'd play endless games of darts and pool. As minors, our main refreshment was a pint of Coke with a bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps and a pickled egg.
Pickling is one of the simplest forms of preservation, and pickled eggs are a true British classic. Like most pickle recipes, they taste much nicer when you make them yourself. Free-range or organic eggs, half-decent vinegar and an interesting combination of herbs and spices will take your pickled eggs to a whole other level.
I tested a few different flavour combinations beyond a classic pickled egg, using up some spices from my kitchen cupboards. One batch I made with beetroot cooking liquid instead of water, which I'd saved from a boiling some beetroots that morning, and then infused it with cumin and fresh dill; I also made a batch with turmeric, peppercorn and ginger, and another spicier batch with lots of chilli flakes and a lime, which was my favourite of the three, though the beetroot and turmeric eggs were both very pretty.
6 eggs
2 heaped tsp sugar
1 level tsp sea salt
150ml vinegar – apple cider, malt or wine vinegar150ml water, or beetroot cooking liquid
Optional aromatics1 garlic clove, peeled1 dried chilli, or 1 heaped tsp chilli flakes2 tsp mixed spices, such as mustard seeds, peppercorns, star anise, cardamom, curry powder, cumin, coriander seeds, turmeric)2 sprigs fresh herbs, such as bay leaf, thyme, oregano, coriander, or 1 tsp dried herbs
Other optional ingredientsSliced ginger
Lime or lemon wedges
Beetroot stalks
Put six eggs in a saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to a boil. After two minutes, turn off the heat and leave for eight minutes. Drain, put the eggs back in the pan, then cover again with cold water. Once the eggs are cool enough to handle, peel them all.
Put the sugar and salt in a 500-600ml pickling jar, pour 150ml hot water over top and stir to dissolve. Add the vinegar, then gently drop in the six peeled hard-boiled eggs and your chosen optional aromatics (use whatever you have). Seal the jar, making sure the eggs are submerged, then refrigerate for up to a month. They're ready to eat immediately, but, to guarantee the best flavour, leave them to pickle for at least a few days.