Cured Egg Yolks
Time: 3-4 days. 15 minutes prep
Serves: however much you make. 1 yolk seasons 4 dishes
Basically use these instead of your reagular salt on anything creamy, like mash taters, or carbonara. They have a stupidly good umami vibe, so you can be far more aggressive with usage than just salt.
Ingredients & Prep
Egg yolks
Salt… lots of salt.
Lots and lots of people will bang on about kosher salt (flaky salt) and how great it is for this. Ignore these people. This is entirely about surface area, so table salt arguably works better.
How to
Seperate the yolks from the whites
Lay down about 1-2 cm of salt on a tray of some kind, making sure there’s enough space for about 1 inch between each yolks
If you’re inclined, make a small dent in the salt where each yolk will go
Pop each yolk in the salt, and literally bury them in more salt. At least another 1-2 cm on each.
If you pop a yolk as you place it in the salt, don’t panic, just quickly pour a load of salt onto it. That keeps it in place, and it’s still perfectly good to use
This is another reason I prefer table salt. Flaky salt seemed to damage the yolks more readily than the softer stuff
Put it in the fridge for anything more than 3 days
On an early morning, after that time has elapsed, take them out and carefully excavate the yolks from the salt
Rinse the salt off under some warm water, but don’t get them too wet, or the next bit will take ages
Find something that will run at about 50 degrees or so. I normally use my grill, or the dehydrator, as the oven starts at 80… which cooks the yolks
Just leave them in there for the rest of the day, and then pop them in the fridge before bed
I’ve found that these things will keep for ages in a fridge. There’s no need to keep them in an airtight container, because the drier they get the better. I usually just pre-grate them into a container with a spice grater and leave the lid off. That way I’ve got a ready supply whenever I need some.
