Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 459 kcal | 130 kcal |
| Protein | 43.9 g | 12.4 g |
| Fat | 27.2 g | 7.7 g |
| saturated | 6.3 g | 1.8 g |
| Carbohydrate | 7.1 g | 2 g |
| sugars | 4.5 g | 1.3 g |
| Fibre | 1 g | 0.3 g |
| Sodium | 2002 mg | 567 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
- 5.3 kg salmon fillets, skin and pin bones removed
- 4 cups soy sauce
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 5 1/4 tablespoons black pepper
- 2 1/2 tablespoons (38 ml) liquid smoke
Instructions
- Take a thick centre-cut fillet over a thin tail piece. A tail tapers, and its thin end will be brittle long before the rest of it is safe.
- Run your fingers against the grain to find the pin bones and pull them with pliers before slicing. A bone left in a dried strip ends up far harder than the flesh around it.
- Firm the fillet in the freezer for an hour, then cut across it at 12 mm. Salmon is soft, and a lukewarm fillet tears into strips of wildly different thickness.
- Whisk the soy, molasses, lemon, Worcestershire, pepper and liquid smoke together before the fish meets any of it. Molasses sinks, and a strip that lands in it comes out twice as dark as its neighbours.
- Marinate in the fridge for three to six hours, turning the bag once, and stop there. Salt and lemon are both working on the flesh and left overnight the salmon goes soft and mealy.
- Drain the strips and lay them out with no overlap. This fish is oily enough that it will not grip a tray the way lean meat does.
- Dry at 71 °C for 6 hours. The setting is high because raw fish is going in, so do not drop it in search of a softer result.
- Cool a strip and bend it: it should flex and show white cracks along the fold without coming apart. Salmon jerky that snaps has been overrun and tastes like fish meal.
- Blot the cooled strips and seal them in a jar — a week at room temperature, a month in the fridge, six months in the freezer. It is the fish oil that fails rather than any moisture, and a batch that has gone smells of paint before it smells of fish.
