Salt cured duck egg yolks

Posted by petra08 on March 9, 2015 · 17 Comments 

One of my friends asked me one day what my favourite ingredient was for cooking. I thought of salt, spices, chilli,garlic and well, where do I start? The question wasn’t all of my favourite ingredients, just the one. After some debating we agreed that life would be tough without eggs. They come in a neat little package, keep for quite a while, have a great taste and work just as well as sweet as savoury.

 

A while back I found this recipe for salt cured egg yolks. I have only had them once and it didn’t even occur to me that you could make your own, I don’t know why. This recipe looked so easy and straight forward I knew I just had to try it.

I think the best eggs around comes from the fishmonger, if I ever need quails eggs this is the only place I have ever found them and duck eggs are a regular staple. They are all fresh and they taste so much better than supermarket eggs. For my experiment I picked up four lovely duck eggs.

 

 

I separated the yolks from the whites and placed the yolks on a bed of salt.

 

 

I then covered the yolks completely with salt and put them in the fridge for one week. I wanted to check up on them but left them to cure.

 

I was so curious as to what they would look like and after a week I could finally, gently brush the salt off and they looked just like candy! I double checked this with a friend who said the very same thing. I am not sure if I imagine but the yolk looked so incredibly yellow and very delicious. They were still quite soft.

 

 

I was supposed to wrap the egg yolks in muslin cloth but I couldn’t find any here. In the end I went to the pharmacy and got some gauze swabs. I figured it would work just the same.

 

 

 

I wrapped the egg yolks and finally added string so that I could hang them.

 

 

 

When I was done I hung them in the fridge, I only have glass shelves but with some juggling around I could tie them to the wine rack, and still keep the wine on top! A plate under and I will have to wait for another 7-14 days, I can’t wait to cook with them.

 

 

The yolks were hard after seven days. I removed the gauze and first grated the yolk over crispy broccoli and shallot onions. The yolk is salty and hard but still has the richness of egg yolk, I really liked it and wished I had cure more of them.

 

Salt cured goose egg yolk 

 

 

I took one of the yolks to the fishmonger. When I told him what I was doing he gave me a discount if I would give him an egg, I will ask him next time I buy fish and see if he has used it,and if so for what.

 

I grated egg yolk over steamed kale and spinach.

 

 

I thought it would be fun to make a new take on carbonara with the cured egg and it turned out really nice.

 

Cured egg yolk carbonara

preparation time 5 minutes

cooking time 5 minutes

serves 3 as a starter

Ingredients

• 1 bunch of black rice noodles
• 1 cured goose egg yolk
• 3 pieces of pork crackling
• 1/6 tsp cayenne pepper, more to taste
• extra virgin olive oil
• chopped parsley

Crush the pork crackling in a pestle and mortar and mix with the cayenne pepper. Chop the parsley fine. Boil the rice noodles for five minutes and rinse under cold water. Mix the drained noodles with the crushed crackling, the parsley and about 2/3 of the cured egg yolk. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with olive oil and finally more cured egg yolk.

 

 

I loved my cured egg yolks and will make more. The egg yolks gets hard and are easy to grate, they bring a lot of taste and one egg yolk goes a long way. I will make more and see what else I can use them for, I think they might be an interesting addition to dumplings. Next time I will make more of them as I am sure they will last a while.

 

I am bringing my cured egg yolks to Angie’s lovely foodie party, Fiesta Friday. If you haven’t visited her blog, The Novice Gardener go over and have a look. It is full of delicious dishes and beautiful pictures, it is inspirational!

 

 

 

 

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Filed under Allotment/Veg, Broccoli, Egg, Onion, Pork, Recipe, Starter · Tagged with black rice noodles, Carbonara, cured egg yolk, egg yolk, goose egg