Egg yolks are magical little things. They help bring together oil and water, make ice creams and custards luscious and smooth, and are the perfect finishing touch to almost any dish. If you’ve ended up with a surplus of them – perhaps from a batch of meringues or by making a magnificent pavlova – you’ll get through them quicker than you think.

All manner of different desserts use egg yolks – like ice cream, crème brûlée and flans. This is because many desserts use custard as a base, and custards typically use a large number of egg yolks. However, egg yolks are very useful in savoury cooking as well. They can make pasta dough rich and silky, give carbonara its luscious sheen and give buns and pastries a glossy finish. 

But as well as being whisked into creams or kneaded into flour, egg yolks can also take centre stage, dramatically perched on top of a plate of pasta or bowl of rice, or enclosed inside a ravioli. Egg yolks can be cured – in salt, soy sauce, sugar or even honey – to make them firmer, fudgier and generally even more delicious. Curing egg yolks also helps them keep for longer. As freezing egg yolks can unfortunately change their texture for the worse, curing is a good alternative.