Cured Egg Yolks

This is a fun recipe to make when you have a few extra eggs on hand. The whites can be saved for meringues. This recipe is similar to Borttuga, which is made from salted fish roe. Once complete, use a microplane to grate the cheese texture over pasta, roasted veggies, or grilled meat/fish.

Ingredients:

1 or more goose, duck, or chicken egg yolk
1 pound of sea salt (you won't need all of it)
cheesecloth
butchers twine

How to:

For each yolk you wish to cure, make a 1/2 inch circular pile of salt in a non reactive Pyrex container. Use a spoon to make a small depression in the salt.

Crack the egg and carefully separate the yolk from the white. Gently place the yolk into the depression. Repeat with the remaining eggs.

Take the extra salt and completely cover the yolk by at least a 1/4 to 1/2 inch.

Transfer the container over to the fridge and store there for a week. 3-4 Days is enough time for chicken and duck yolks.

After seven days, remove the containers and carefully retrieve the yolks, using a towel to dust off as much salt as you can.

Wrap the yolks in cheesecloth then tie with butcher's twine and hang in a cool, dark spot in your home for another 7-10 days. Stop a few days earlier for chicken or duck yolks. You can do this part in your fridge as well.

Once complete, you can store your cured yolk at room temperature for a month, maybe longer. Although, I used mine up pretty fast, so unsure exactly how long they will last.

Thanks Frank, this sounds great. Always looking for new ways to store food
What does it taste like? Salty hard boiled egg?

Another alternative is to dehydrate the eggs in a regular dehydrator. I blend up my eggs and pour them onto a sheet of aluminum foil or plastic wrap. My dehydrator finishes them in about a day. I then drop the dried pieces in a blender to powder them and then put them in a mason jar. Several dozen eggs fit in a quart mason jar and they seem to store well. I've used eggs over a year old and they reconstitute fine (put the powder in warm water for about an hour). I often evacuate the air out of the jar. Things seem to keep better then.

Very interesting frank. I'm gonna try it

Separating the yolk from the white is easy if you use an empty water bottle (pint or smaller).

Squeeze "enough" air out.
Place the opening of the bottle over the yolk.
Release the bottle, and the vacuum inside will pull the yolk into the bottle.
Squeeze the bottle again to eject the yolk (in this case, onto the salt).

Awesome! I'll have to try this. I've made bottarga (I'm thinking that's what you meant by borttuga) before with salmon roe.

How salty are the cured eggs? Do they dissolve in water to be used in recipes?

I love this if you need a bunch of WHITES.
If not, I mimic Paul on this one and take the easier route.

Well, my wife does. She follows a more-or-less Chines recipe for making 'fermented' salt brine eggs. They keep 6 months no problem. You don't boil or anything till ready to use. My wife cracks the cured eggs into a pot of cooking congy(sp?)!! Oh, so delicious!
Sorry, i don't have the recipe. Could get if its not easily found.

Peace!

The first pic, is it several yokes or is it a large egg (goose?) It seems large, but I assume they shrink.

Always looking for things to do with the yolks when I make an Angel Food Cake. 12 Egg whites needed. That gives me 12 lonely egg yolks.

Sorry.. OT, but mmmm angel food cake! always looking for an excuse to make that ;) My favorite way to use a dozen eggs.. whites for angel cake, and yolks for caramel custard (Julia Child's recipe takes a lot of yolks ;)

BeeDee marshall wrote:Thanks Frank, this sounds great. Always looking for new ways to store food
What does it taste like? Salty hard boiled egg?

Its firmer than a hard boiled yolk. A touch salty,(I should have cleaned the top pic better), and also creamy.

Mick Fisch wrote:How salty are the cured eggs? Do they dissolve in water to be used in recipes?

They aren't too salty. The top picture reveals some excess salt, which I eventually cleaned up more. The yolk wouldn't really dissolve. Its like creamy/firm grating cheese.

wayne fajkus wrote:The first pic, is it several yokes or is it a large egg (goose?) It seems large, but I assume they shrink.

Yup, it's a goose egg.

I just started four fresh duck yolks curing last night. I'm looking forward to seeing the results in a few days. After hearing about it in this thread, I did a little more research and found that some people use a 50/50 mix of sugar and salt. Also, many recipes called for them to be air dried. They are dusted off after salting for a week or so then wrapped in cheese cloth and hung in a dark cool space to finish curing.

If this works out well then I'll be doing a lot of it. I've been looking for new food things recently and this seems fun.

Craig Dobbelyu wrote:I just started four fresh duck yolks curing last night. I'm looking forward to seeing the results in a few days. After hearing about it in this thread, I did a little more research and found that some people use a 50/50 mix of sugar and salt. Also, many recipes called for them to be air dried. They are dusted off after salting for a week or so then wrapped in cheese cloth and hung in a dark cool space to finish curing.

If this works out well then I'll be doing a lot of it. I've been looking for new food things recently and this seems fun.

I see a lot of recipes calling for sugar, which I omitted. Sugar helps balance the saltiness but also hurts my teeth.

My latest batch of duck yolks are wrapped in cheesecloth and air drying by my wood stove.