Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 370 kcal | 105 kcal |
| Protein | 50.4 g | 14.3 g |
| Fat | 13.6 g | 3.9 g |
| saturated | 4.6 g | 1.3 g |
| Carbohydrate | 8 g | 2.3 g |
| sugars | 3.5 g | 1 g |
| Fibre | 2.7 g | 0.8 g |
| Sodium | 2202 mg | 624 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 beef, such as bottom round or eye of round
- 1/4 cup salt
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons (30 ml) chilli powder
- 2 tablespoons smoked paprika
- 2 tablespoons cumin
- 2 tablespoons coriander
- 2 tablespoons garlic powder
- 2 tablespoons onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Instructions
- Buy the beef in one piece and slice it yourself. Eye of round is a single muscle with no seams through it, which is why it makes the most even jerky of any cheap cut.
- Part-freeze the joint, then cut strips at 6 mm. Consistency matters more than direction here: a dry cure works from the surface inwards, so every strip needs the same distance from surface to centre.
- Mix the salt, brown sugar, chilli powder, smoked paprika, cumin, coriander, garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne until the colour is completely uniform. A patch of unmixed cayenne makes some strips inedible and leaves the rest bland.
- Put the meat and the rub in a bag and massage it into every strip, pressing the spice onto both faces. Nothing here is wet, so the rub reaches only where your hands drive it.
- Refrigerate it overnight. The salt draws water out of the meat, dissolves into it, and carries the spices back in — a process that takes hours rather than minutes.
- Take the bag out and let the meat lose its chill before it goes on the trays. Fridge-cold meat drags the temperature inside the machine down for the first hour, which is the hour that matters most on a raw product.
- Dry at 65 °C for 8 hours. A dry cure produces a less oily jerky than a marinade and browns less as well, so do not read the paler colour as underdone.
- Cool a strip and bend it into a hook. It should crack along the outside of the bend and stay in one piece; if it snaps clean through, pull the batch now, because it is heading for sawdust.
- Seal the cooled strips in a jar out of the light for a month, or vacuum-seal them for six. This keeps better than any marinated jerky for the simple reason that nothing wet was ever added to it.
