The Cooking Hack That Creates Grateable Egg Yolks
By Tommy Werner, Epicurious
When I worked as a server at a popular Manhattan wine bar, the coolest kitchen trick I picked up from the place was hanging from the ceiling.
Literally.
Suspended high above the dessert trays and platters of house-made chorizo in our dry storage area were egg yolks hanging from the ceiling in cheesecloth pouches. The yolks weren’t running down the side of the wall or dripping on the tempered chocolate down below—they were curing, and getting thicker by the day. After a week of curing, they were solid enough to grate.
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Salt curing—the oldest naturally-occurring food preservation technique known to man—involves simply covering food in a mixture of sugar and salt to draw out moisture and transform its flavor and texture. This works with pork, fish, and, yes, egg yolks. And the results are stunning—the yolks take on a saltier, sharper character, a firm but pliable texture, and become an instant flavor booster for just about any dish.
This all this sounds terribly fancy, I know. But honestly, it couldn’t be easier to pull off at home. You don’t have to mess with hanging them from the ceiling. In fact, you don’t even need cheesecloth. All you need is sugar, salt, and a plastic container that’s at least six inches in width and height (this one works great).
Combine 1 ¾ cups sugar and 1 ¼ cups kosher salt in a mixing bowl. Line the bottom of the container with a thick layer of the salt mixture. Make small indentations in the mixture and slide the yolks into them, being careful not to break them (if they do, it’s not the end of the world, they’ll just be trickier to grate). Cover the yolks completely with the salt mixture, seal the container, and place it in the refrigerator.
After just four days, the yolks will have jelled up enough to be easily grated with a Microplane. Remove them from the cure, rinse them briefly with water and use a paper towel to gently remove any remaining curing mixture. Then wrap the yolks in plastic and refrigerate until you’re ready to use themthey’ll last up to 3 months.
Newly-cured yolks are as thick as Parmesan—deploy them the same way. Try grating them over a pasta dish like Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe or Spaghetti Carbonara. Want avocado toast? Cure-ify it. Do the same to this romaine and chicken dish. You might even want to start shredding the stuff into compound butter. In fact, there are few places cured egg yolk can’t add a welcoming finish of rich saltiness.
You might even call it a cure-all.
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PHOTOS BY CHELSEA KYLE, FOOD STYLING BY TOMMY WERNER
