Wrap the yolks in cheese cloth, hang them up and allow them to air dry for a week before using.
Curing egg yolks in salt is a great trick I learned from a chef friend of mine, the talented Brett Weber, now chef de cuisine at the Bachelor Farmer in Minneapolis.
You take some duck yolks (chicken would work fine too, but they won’t yield as much) cover them in salt, let them sit for two days, then wrap them in cheese cloth and hang them for a week. Afterwords the yolks can be shaved like cheese.
Now the basic salted yolk is a great thing, but eggs, more than anything else I know, will absorb aromas from things they come into contact with. When I got a batch of truffles this year, I did an experiment using truffled salt in place of regular salt. The truffled yolks tasted so strong that they took over the flavor of a recent soup I made, almost all I could taste was truffle, just from a teency bit of grated yolk hitting the broth.
After I found out how good the truffle salt worked, I started using herbs, and the results were fantastic. Needless to say, you don’t have to have truffles to enjoy the salted yolks, anything with a strong perfume would be excellent. For example, salt ground in a robot coupe/food processor with lovage or rosemary gave awesome results too. Next year I will have to try ramp leaves.
You might find yourself wondering what you could garnish with shaved, salted egg yolks. Here are some of the ways we’ve enjoyed using them.
- Shaved as a garnish on beef tartare
- As a garnish for a soup
- In place of cheese on a dairy-less salad
- In place of cheese on a dairy-less pasta
Truffled duck egg yolks
Truffle Salt-Cured Duck Egg Yolks
Ingredients
- 2 duck eggs
- 1/2 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh black truffle grated
Instructions
- Spread 1/2 of the salt in a layer in a container such as a tupper-ware, the container doesn't matter that much, just so long as the yolks don't get sloshed around, since they would break. I have used cookie sheets, tupper-ware, and 1/2 pint canning jars, they all worked fine, but the 1/2 pint canning jars were probably the easiest to use.
- Crack the duck eggs one at a time in your hand, allowing the white to fall through into another dish. Save the whites for an omelet or something, or discard.
- Gently place the yolks on top of the salt and then cover with the rest of the salt, making sure they are completely covered. Refrigerate the yolks for 2 days.
- After two days, remove the yolks from the salt and wrap in cheese cloth. Tie up the yolks and hang them to dry for 1 week in a cool dark place. After a week, remove the yolks from the cheesecloth, wrap in plastic and refrigerate. To serve, grate the yolks as you would cheese (preferrably with a microplane grater as they are salty).
Notes
Future cured egg research
While I was typing this up, I had a fun thought on a variation you could make with these. So I cure fish to make gravlax, I use a proportion of salt and sugar. Sugar, like salt, has preservative properties, and you could use the same mix, (dill would be great) to cure some eggs. Going even farther down the bunny hole, I know that eggs are used in many of my favorite desserts, the most interesting being a sweet dessert omelet made with berries by Jacques Chibois. Curing egg yolks in sugar should work too, and the first thing that came to my mind was curing them with vanilla sugar, and then grating them on top of a cake, one with berries in it sounds the best to me. I’ll do some research and update this post If I come up with something.
Thanks for posting this Alan, since i forgot how you told me it was made! Do let me know if you try it with sugar, and how that turns out!
No prob Lois, I’m going to give the sugar version a go this week, I’ll keep you posted.
its funny, as I was reading and thinking about the salt quotient I stumbled down the same hole. I thought about rosemary salt, then I thought about a traditional juniper/allspice cure, then thought a bout the physics of a straight sugar cure but with coriander/grapefruit zest. challenge accepted.
Glad you liked it Shawn, this is a fun recipe, it will be a garnish on our tartare at the salt cellar. 🙂
Did you ever try the sugar cure? All I have are chicken eggs, but have plenty of those right now. We are all supposed to be on a minimum salt diet around here! Thanks!
Another option instead of just vanilla sugar – have you tried vanilla salt? Would that over power the egg yolk? Just an option…
Hi There,
I’m in the process of a salt cure. 2 questions.
1. I have an underground bodega which is were I keep all my ferments. Will this be a good place to dry the yolks or will the yolk take on the musky smell of the room?
2. I can use my dehydrator on a low heat setting, will that work?
You can dry them in the underground room, that’s fine, as long as it’s cool. I would open the door of the dehydrator if you want to use that.