Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 367 kcal | 104 kcal |
| Protein | 50 g | 14.2 g |
| Fat | 12.5 g | 3.6 g |
| saturated | 4.5 g | 1.3 g |
| Carbohydrate | 10.5 g | 3 g |
| sugars | 7.8 g | 2.2 g |
| Fibre | 0.5 g | 0.2 g |
| Sodium | 2314 mg | 656 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
- 2.6 kg lean minced beef
- 1 3/4 tablespoons (26 ml) salt
- 2 3/4 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
- 7/8 teaspoon garlic powder
- 5/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes, crushed
- 2 3/4 tablespoons meat tenderizer
- 7/8 tablespoon pepper
- 3 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 5/8 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 5/8 cup liquid smoke
- 3/8 cup ketchup
Instructions
- Use the leanest mince the butcher has. Minced beef carries its fat distributed through every square millimetre rather than in a seam you can cut away, so there is no fixing it later and fat is what sends ground jerky rancid.
- Work the salt, Cajun seasoning, garlic powder, pepper flakes, tenderiser, black pepper and brown sugar through the meat with your hands until no streaks of seasoning are visible. Mince has no grain to carry flavour along, so an unmixed patch simply stays unseasoned.
- Keep the Worcestershire, ketchup and liquid smoke out of that mixing. All three are wet, and wet mince will neither hold a strip shape nor come out of a jerky gun cleanly.
- Load the gun and shoot strips straight onto the trays, or press the meat between two sheets and roll it to 6 mm before cutting strips. Even thickness matters more here than with muscle meat, because there is no fibre holding a thin patch together.
- Whisk those three wet ingredients together and brush them over the strips. Painting the surface is the point — poured on, the sauce soaks in and puts back the water you are about to spend all day removing.
- Dry at 68 °C for 8 hours. Mince is handled far more than a whole muscle and bacteria go right through it rather than sitting on the outside, which is why this runs hotter than a sliced jerky.
- Blot the strips with paper towel once or twice during the run. Mince keeps releasing fat as it warms, and fat lying on the surface seals the water in underneath it.
- Take a strip out, let it cool, and bend it. It should crack across the bend and hold together; one that tears apart in your fingers was rolled too thin, and one that folds limply needs more time.
- Let it go completely cold, blot it a final time, then jar it. Ground jerky keeps nothing like as long as sliced — a week on the shelf, a month in the fridge, a year frozen — because there is no way to get the fat out.
