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I've cured egg yolks before (in salt) and I've learned frozen egg recipe. Freezing an egg allows for it to coagulate and intensify the flavour. I've been trying to figure out how to cure one of these frozen yolks but my issues seems to be that if I try the salt curing method as the outside of the yolk thaws and cures the inside will be frozen unable to cure. By the time the center thaws the outside will have developed a crust to form around it not allowing for the curing to penetrate deeper.

My only thought around it so far would be to let the yolk thaw before starting any of the curing but that might have the yolk fall apart after being tightened in the freezer.

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    Two questions, Is there a reason you can't salt-cure first, and freeze afterwards? and, is there a reason not to just try thawing a yolk to see if it will fall apart or not, before trying a salt-cure? Even if it does fall apart, chances are it can be used elsewhere.
    – Megha
    Apr 18, 2018 at 6:28
  • Curing then freezing would make it impossible to coagulate the egg because i need the moisture inside it. And i finally finished the batch of thawed yolks but the yolks are too fragile after the freezing and thawing and either opened as they thawed or broke from the thin layer of salt placed onto of them
    – Jade So
    Apr 18, 2018 at 6:53

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This is a speculative answer, since I have salt-cured eggs but not frozen ones.

One possible answer would be to start the curing from frozen, but add water when it forms a crust. The moisture should loosen up the crust, letting the salt cure penetrate more readily. This might be accomplished by dripping water on the curing egg, enough to soften/break up the crust, or moving it to a brine once the crust has set up. The drying of the outside should give enough structure that the egg doesn't break.

Another possibility might be to start curing in a brine, and later move to dry-salt curing, depending on how moist you want the final product to be. A brine should be softer on the yolk than dry salt - given buoyancy - so even when it is partially or totally thawed it shouldn't break so easily.

Also, I think it's worth asking what you think the outcome will be. The freezing coagulates the yolk, but so does partially drying them (I've done so by accident), and salt curing also dries out the yolk, and I find it sets up pretty hard. You may find there's no difference between salt-cured yolks that were frozen beforehand or fresh, both having lost moisture and coagulating.

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