Has anyone ever tried curing egg yolks before? A friend of mine mentioned this to me recently and I had never heard of it before, so I looked it up, decided it sounded interesting and easy and gave it a shot. The photo shows the end result: a very firm egg yolk that can be grated with a microplane. What you can't see is how it tastes, which is something like eggy Parmesan - pleasantly salty with the richness you'd expect from an egg yolk.
The method is very simple. I made a cure of about 105 g kosher salt and 35 g sugar (75% salt to 25% sugar), poured about one-third of this into a ramekin and made a small depression in the mixture using the fat end of an egg. The idea of the depression is to give the yolk a "nest" to sit in. Crack and separate an egg, being sure to remove the stringy big from the yolk. Gently place the yolk in the ramekin and then cover it with the remaining cure mixture. Put this in the fridge (do not cover with plastic wrap or anything like that) for a week, gently turning the yolk over and re-covering it with cure after three or four days. Remove the yolk from the cure, rub off as much of the cure as you can, wrap it in a couple layers of cheesecloth, tie it up and hang it in your fridge for another week. The finished yolk should be very firm but still just a tiny bit moist, like a moist piece of Parmesan cheese. Grate with a microplane and use as a garnish on asparagus, pasta, chicken etc. I'm storing the remaining yolk in the fridge in a ramekin covered with rice.
Any other ideas on how to use this would certainly be most welcome.
