What’s the best way to eat salted egg yolk? With seafood, chicken or bread? Should it be oozy, creamy, everywhere? Or a sharp, salty, dry rub? With these 5 basic ways to use salted egg yolk –you can have it any way you want, with anything you want.

1. Meat

Among all meats, chicken has a plain taste that’s great for pairing with the savoury duck egg. To spice up an ordinary chicken dish, you would first deep-fry it, then thoroughly mix into a creamy, overflowing salted egg yolk sauce.

Here’s one for tonight: Hot-fried chicken bits with melted butter, curry leaves, in a deliciously rich salted egg yolk gravy.

But before you get started, you’ll want to know what makes a good salted duck egg -it should look deep orange, taste grainy, and carry a generous ooze of oil.

2. Seafood

As far as seafood goes, prawns are a good place to start.

Already, they’ve been used successfully with crunchy cereal, aromatic chinese wine, and tangy assam pedas. But salted egg yolk fans say that the sauce, paired with prawns, is a classic in the making -just like chilli crab.

And it’s a great idea to add flecks of curry leaves for nice spice, as we’ve done so in this recipe for salted egg yolk buttered prawns.

Or, you might go on and try itin some light and crispy soft-shell crab. A good choice -you get a fancy dish, without needing to crack through the skeleton. Unlike prawns though, be sure to coat every little claw and joint evenly, so you get salted egg yolk all around.

Now you’ve probably already noticed that butter is in the first two recipes, as in this. In fact, it’s in almost all salted egg yolk recipes. That’s because butter improves both the taste and texture of the briny yolk, due to its smoothness, savouriness and umami-ness.

3. Pasta

The simple salted egg yolk is having its moment in pasta. At once sweet and salty, and not too fluid, culinary critics say it makes the perfect consistency for a sauce.

Plating it too, is a visual treat.

Just look at how truffle and squid ink fares there. Luscious and golden yellow, the bright colour of salted egg is one that opens your eyes and appetite.

Now remember that when tossing in pasta, you’ll want to balance its richness with a hint of heat, like how we’ve added chillies to this recipe for salted egg yolk buttered prawn pasta.

Any pasta will do, but for a long-lasting slippery slurp, use spaghetti.

4. Bread

It’s not widely known, but salted egg yolk was first popularised in bread. Back in 2009, a Hong Kong staple –the steamed bun was filled with salted egg yolk. The molten paste made with condensed milk, butter and salted egg yolk is now called “Liu Sha Bao”, and is a mainstay in Cantonese Dim Sum.

About 8 years ago, this small gooeybun arrived in Singapore, starting a salted egg yolk craze in chips, desserts and dishes that remains unstoppable.

But we’ve found that the gooey sauce really packs a punch when melted into two slices of fried bread, and pulled apart to let out a golden flow of salted egg yolk.

Visually impressive and equally tasty -try it here.

5. Salad

Crush a salted egg yolk into this tangy, sweet Thai Mango Salad 

For an unusual salad garnish, don’t grate cheese, grate a salted egg yolk instead.

Fans say it’s a great equivalent because it’s punchy, sharp and creamy, much like cheese.No grater? Well, roughly chop up the yolk and throw into any salad, for well-seasoned fix. We also used mild, slightly sweet, juicy squid in our salad, together with soft spinach.

But it isn’t just the salad that’s keeping you healthy. Records show that back in China where it was first used, salted egg yolk treated health issues. You took it with plain congee when you had diarrhoea, or irritable eyes.

So whether you’ll have a succulent squid salad with chopped salted egg yolk, or one ofthe other 5 recipes above, you’re in for a satisfying meal, with all the right Asian flavours.

That’s because salted egg yolk is everything we love in our food -savoury, sweet, with a lingering taste of umami.