Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 386 kcal | 109 kcal |
| Protein | 54.6 g | 15.5 g |
| Fat | 13.5 g | 3.8 g |
| saturated | 4.9 g | 1.4 g |
| Carbohydrate | 7.7 g | 2.2 g |
| sugars | 4.6 g | 1.3 g |
| Fibre | 1.7 g | 0.5 g |
| Sodium | 1301 mg | 369 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 1.8 kilograms round beef, cut into thin slices about 1/8 inch
Wet Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups plus extra ounces soy sauce
- 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 3/4 pound carrots, juiced
- 3/8 pound celery, juiced
- 1 1/4 tablespoons of fresh juiced ginger
- 1 1/4 tablespoons finely chopped garlic cloves
Blended Spice
- 3 1/4 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons black pepper corns, freshly ground
- 3/4 tablespoon onion powder
- 3/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 3/8 teaspoon cumin
- 3/8 teaspoon finely crushed red pepper
Instructions
- Trim every scrap of visible fat off the round before you slice it. Muscle dries and fat does not, and fat left on a strip is what turns a batch stale weeks before it should.
- Cut across the grain into slices around 3 mm thick. Any thicker and the run will not reach the middle of a strip before it ends.
- Juice the carrots, celery and ginger and whisk them into the soy and Worcestershire with the brown sugar. The vegetable juice is doing the job a shop marinade gives to plain water, and it carries a sweetness the soy alone has not got.
- Stir the pepper, cayenne, cumin, onion powder and crushed chilli in last, then add the strips one at a time. Dropped in as a handful, the dry spice cakes between slices instead of coating them.
- Refrigerate the lot overnight and turn it once if you are passing. Round is a lean, tight cut and lets a marinade in more slowly than flank does.
- Lift the strips onto a rack and let them drip for ten minutes before they go on the trays. Pepper suspended in liquid runs to the lowest edge of a strip and burns there.
- Dry at 65 °C for 6 hours. Five pounds of beef fills a machine, so rotate the trays at the midpoint, since whatever sits nearest the fan finishes well ahead of the rest.
- Pull a strip out, let it cool, and bend it: it should crack along the fold and show dry fibres rather than a moist red line. Judging a hot strip is how people end up with jerky that moulds in the bag.
- Sealed in the fridge it lasts a fortnight, and vacuum sealed in the freezer six months. This marinade is built on fresh vegetable juice with no curing salt in it, which is why it has no business in a cupboard.
