Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 345 kcal | 98 kcal |
| Protein | 49.6 g | 14.1 g |
| Fat | 11.9 g | 3.4 g |
| saturated | 4.3 g | 1.2 g |
| Carbohydrate | 7.5 g | 2.1 g |
| sugars | 5.6 g | 1.6 g |
| Fibre | 0.4 g | 0.1 g |
| Sodium | 4552 mg | 1291 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
- 2.2 kg flank steak
- 1 3/4 cups soy sauce
- 4 3/4 tablespoons (71 ml) Hawaiian salt
- 3 3/4 tablespoons sugar
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 ginger, mashed
- 2 red chilli peppers, crushed
Instructions
- Firm the flank steak in the freezer for half an hour before you touch it with a knife. Flank is loose-grained, and cold meat is the only reliable way to get strips of one thickness out of it.
- Find which way the grain runs and cut 3.4 cm wide strips across it for a jerky that bites through, or along it for the chewier rope this dish takes its name from.
- Mix the soy, sugar, Hawaiian salt, garlic, ginger and chilli until no sugar is left sitting on the bottom of the bowl. Undissolved sugar stays where it settles and scorches onto whatever meat is above it.
- Turn the strips through the marinade, cover them and leave them in the fridge overnight. This belongs in the cold — meat left out on a warm bench to marinate is the riskiest thing anyone does in a jerky recipe.
- Lift each strip out and run it between two fingers to strip the excess off. Marinade left clinging beads up and dries to a sticky varnish instead of soaking in.
- Lay the strips with a gap between them and slide a lined tray underneath. Flank gives up a surprising amount of fat, and fat dripping onto whatever is below ruins it.
- Dry at 71 °C for 6 hours. This is one of the hottest runs on the site and the reason is speed: the meat needs to move through the warm range bacteria favour quickly rather than sit in it.
- Cool a strip, then bend it into a U. It should crack along the bend without breaking in two, and show no wet red at the centre of the tear.
- Sealed in the fridge it holds a fortnight, and vacuum sealed in the freezer six months. Without a vacuum seal, jerky left at room temperature is a few days rather than a few weeks, whatever the shop packet claims.
