Cured Egg Yolks

These may seem other worldy, but cured egg yolks are a great savoury way to use your leftover from meringues, friands ect. By curing them, you infuse the yolks with a spiced salty flavour, that is best used grated over pasta or salads. Anywhere you'd think to put parmesan cheese, you can put this instead!

Ingredients:

- 6 egg yolks

- 3.5 cups salt (I used pink Himalayan salt)

- 4 bay leaves

- 2 tablespoons peppercorns (I used Sichuan)

- 2 tablespoons sugar

Methods:

- Combine your salt, sugar and spices in a blender, and pulse until the spices are finely ground and well combined.

- Place half of the salt mixture into a container, ensuring it's at least half an inch thick.

- Make 6 shallow wells in your salt by gently pressing an egg into the mix. Make sure that the wells aren't too deep that the container is showing through.

- Gently drop your 6 egg yolks into the wells, if any break just scoop it out with a spoon. You cannot use broken yolks.

- Once your yolks are in their wells, gently sprinkle the remaining salt mixture over the yolks with a spoon. This is to make sure you don't break the yolks as they're being covered.

- Leave the container uncovered and place in the fridge for 4 days.

- After 4 days, remove the yolks from the salt mix. The salt may be firm, but thats okay! It has done its job and drawn the moisture out of the yolks.

- You can leave as much salt on the yolks as you'd like, you can even run them under cold water and gently rub to remove all excess salt.

- Now it's time to leave them to dry. Either put the yolks in a dehydrator for 12 hours, hang them in muslin cloth at room temperature for a couple of days, or dry in your oven. Whatever method works for you! As long as they are rock hard by the end of it.

- Store at room temperature.