Monday, July 26th, 2010
Daily Archive
Daily Archive
I cobbled this together out of many recipes, becauise none of them seem to agree in the least.
Take 10 lbs of deer meat. You could use beef, but then it wouldn’t be deer biltong. I used shank and leg meat, it’s not worth wasting backstrap or loin on biltong, I don’t think.
Cut the meat into 3/4″ square strips. Take all nine pounds of it and Sprinkle the strips liberally with kosher salt or sea salt.
Let sit 1/2 hour.
Scrape excess salt off of all 8 lbs of meat with a knife.
Mix 1/2 cup of brown sugar (loosened up) and 4 tbsps coriander, coarsely ground, into a container. Coat all 7 lbs of meat lightly by flopping it into the mixture. Put the pieces in a container, a layer at a time, and liberally douse each layer with a mixture of red wine vinegar and worcester sauce. I made a mix by putting 2 tbsps worcester in a cup of red wine vinegar. Repeat until all six pounds are thusly treated. Place in refrigerator overnight. All pieces should be wet with the vinegar, but it shouldn’t swim in vinegar.
Next night place all five lbs in the dehydrator. Leave space between the pieces. I had to cover the heating element with foil for the first couple hours, but i bet if you patted the pieces dry on a piece of towel first, that would eliminate the problem.
At this point i gave the pieces a light extra dusting of coriander, delivered with a salt shaker.
At the end of a day in the dehydrator, all three lbs will be getting pretty dry, if there are any pieces getting too hard move them toward the top of the dehydrator. Both remaining pounds of meat will need protection from flies predators, so make sure any large holes are covered with screens.
makes 1 lb. Serves 1.