A little over a week from now is this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival. The actual date is different every year, but this year it will fall on October 1st.

If you know me, or follow me on Instagram (I’m @sushiday!) then you’ll know by now that I love mooncakes. Every year around this time, I post pictures of the mooncakes that we bought from 85C Bakery or M? Hi?p Bakery in Little Saigon, or the ones Son’s parents got us, or even, one year, the ones I made!

They’re a lot of work – but I’d say a YouTube channel is the perfect excuse to make the effort, wouldn’t you?

We love mooncakes, so much.

I’m a no-yolk kinda gal, but Son? He LOVES the salted egg yolk.

If I’m making mooncakes, I can’t NOT make the salted egg yolks for Son.

So that’s what we’re doing today!

Last time I made mooncakes on my old Twitch cooking stream, I didn’t plan far enough ahead, so all I had time for was some quick-cured egg yolks. They weren’t bad… but they weren’t nearly as good as the ones we’re used to getting.

This year, I planned well ahead, and a month ago started brining some eggs.

But I wanted to do a true test – compare the two techniques, and see how we feel about both of them up against each other!

Therefore, I will be showing you both methods today – and then we will be tasting and comparing the two at the end.

First, the brine technique.

Boil one part salt in four parts water, until the salt completely dissolves. Let that cool completely – we don’t want cooked eggs today!

Place however many eggs you want to cure in a glass container, and pour the brine over them, making sure the eggs are fully submerged. The eggs will float, so you may need to put something in the container to push them down – I used a smaller lid, turned upside-down, or you could use crumpled up parchment paper.

Put that in the fridge, and a month later, your eggs will be ready to use! Hard-boil the eggs, use the yolks for mooncakes, and eat the whites with congee.

That’s the longer technique – now for the quick method!

Three days before you want to use your yolks, separate the yolks from some whites and place them on a bed of salt. You can save the whites for some other use. Cover the yolks with more salt, and stick them in the fridge for 3 days.

After the three days have passed, brush off as much salt as possible, and then rinse the yolks in apple cider vinegar to get the rest of the salt crystals off. If they still look crystallized, you may have to cut off the outer layer – otherwise they’ll end up suuuuper salty.

Your yolks are ready to use!

If you want to see how we’ll be using salted egg yolks in our mooncakes, make sure to subscribe – Shrimpy will be making the fillings for us, and then we’ll finish off our mooncakes later this week!

And make sure to watch the video to see our reviews of each type of salted egg yolk, and which was our favorite!

Salted Egg Yolks

slightly adapted from What to Cook Today

For the long method (start 1 month ahead)

Ingredients

• 1 cup salt
• 4 cups water
• 12 eggs (or however many you want to use)

Cooking Directions

1. Boil the salt and water until the salt is completely dissolved. Let cool completely.
2. Check the eggs to make sure there are no cracks. Discard any cracked eggs.
3. Place the eggs in a glass container, and pour the brine over the eggs. Make sure the eggs are completely submerged – I used an upside-down smaller lid, but crumpled parchment paper will also work fine.
4. Cover and refrigerate for 1 month.
5. After 1 month, remove eggs from the brine. Refrigerate until ready to use.
6. Hard-boil the eggs, use the yolks for mooncakes, and eat the whites with congee.

For the short method (start 3 days ahead)

Ingredients

• salt
• egg yolks
• apple cider vinegar

Cooking Directions

1. Place a bed of salt on the bottom of a dish. Gently lay the egg yolks on top of the salt. Completely cover the yolks with more salt.
2. Cover and refrigerate 3 days.
3. When the three days are up, remove the eggs from the salt, making sure to brush off all the salt from the yolk. If needed, you can use apple cider vinegar to rinse off the salt.
4. Use the yolks for mooncakes!

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