salt-cured yolks

Here’s an idea I saw first over at Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. After I started my one-egg experiment, I looked up some different takes on this process. From Belly to Bacon uses a shorter salting time, but is basically the same, and deserves a mention for the phrase “cheese cloth scrotal apparatus” alone. You have to cook it right, on the other hand, used a salt/sugar cure mixture, going off the recipe in Charcutería: The Soul of Spain. I like the simplicity of just using yolks and salt, but I can’t actually ignore the opportunity to tinker with sweetness and spices.

Yesterday, I took that first yolk out of its jar of salt. It’d been only six days, but sometimes you get antsy to see how things are turning out. It was firm enough to pick up easily and to hold its shape, but seemed like it would squish and smear if I applied much pressure. I don’t have cheesecloth around right now, so I popped it into a coffee filter and returned it to the fridge to dry out. I’m feeling very lucky to have eggs from backyard chickens to play with; the yolks are gorgeous.

It seemed a pity to waste the used salt, so I popped it into the toaster oven to bake some of the moisture back out of it. I also added a little ground coriander and toasted that with the salt. This yolk received a sprinkle of black pepper before it was encased in salt, in hopes that the contact would help the flavor sink in. As a sweetener, I mixed date molasses in with the salt, because the flavor seemed like it might be a good match with the rich yolk and the coriander. Will it turn out to have been a terrible plan to use a syrup in a salt-curing project, because it adds misture? I have no idea, but I’ll find out in two weeks!

garlic scape pickles, bite-size ferment, mango-chili vinegar

Today I started a few different fermented goodies.

For the first two, I used my usual lazy interpretation of Sandor Ellix Katz’s basic instructions from the fabulous Wild Fermentation: I add sea salt to water until it tastes about like tears, or a little more salt if the veggies are tightly packed in the vessel and not much water will fit. My goal is for the water to be clearly salty, but not unpleasantly so, not like a saltwater gargle. Then I weight the veggies, to be sure they stay under the surface of the liquid, and set them aside to ignore them for a while.

Pickle 1 was elephant garlic scapes, trimmed at the base to fit into the pitcher I used but otherwise left whole, and a few lengths of gobo (burdock root). I seasoned them with foraged goodies: grape leaves to keep them crunchier, green seed pods (siliques, as I just learned yesterday) from a few different weedy mustard-relatives, and a couple fir tips just to see if I like them.

Pickle 2 was the trimmed parts of the scapes, sliced into small bits, plus chopped gobo and daikon. I added some Korean chili powder, plus a bit of the brine from the radish pickles in the fridge, to quicken the fermentation. My hope is that this one will be perfect for adding a spoonful or two to soups, rice, or even ramen, to add some kimchi-ish veggie goodness.

The third thing is a new sort of thing for me. I read a great post about making “scrap vinegars” over at Kitchen Counter Culture, so I tossed a mango pit (with a fair bit of flesh attached) in a jar with Korean chili powder, water, a squirt of honey, and a splash of live-culture apple cider vinegar. Remember the mango lollipops with the chili-lime-salt coating? I’m hoping that I’ll wind up with a vinegar version of that.

black locust flowers & early salmonberries

This here’s a calendar post, to help me keep track of when I should be looking for which eatable things in the Seattle area.

Today I got around to looking for black locust flowers which were low enough to be reachable. I found some over in northeast Magnolia- slightly closer to the rail line than I’d like, but I was willing to compromise in the interest of a tasty snack. It’s towards the end of their brief season here, but I’m still hoping to get a chance to gather enough for a salad before they’re gone.

I also happened upon some early salmonberries, over by Discovery Park. The first time I tried salmonberries was after I found them in the same area. I didn’t know what they were, but I  could tell they were Rubus relatives, and in my book that’s enough justification to put ’em in my mouth. (I don’t suggest doing that with berries-in-general. Even I am not quite that unwary.)