Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 320 kcal | 91 kcal |
| Protein | 38.6 g | 11 g |
| Fat | 4.4 g | 1.2 g |
| saturated | 1.5 g | 0.4 g |
| Carbohydrate | 29.5 g | 8.4 g |
| sugars | 25.4 g | 7.2 g |
| Fibre | 2 g | 0.6 g |
| Sodium | 1480 mg | 420 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 venison or beef
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 3/4 cup pineapple juice
- 3 tablespoons black pepper
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 3 tablespoons minced garlic
- 3 tablespoons paprika
- 3/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 1 1/2 cups soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon sriracha sauce
Instructions
- Freeze venison solid for several days before you use it, as the description insists. Wild meat can carry parasites that drying temperatures will not deal with, and freezing is what handles them.
- Part-thaw the meat and cut it to 6 mm while it is still firm. Venison is close-grained and easier to slice evenly than beef, but only while it is cold.
- Trim the silverskin off as you go. It is the tough membrane over the muscle, it never softens, and a strip carrying it cannot be bitten through.
- Stir the brown sugar into the soy, Worcestershire, pineapple and lemon juice until it has dissolved, then add the pepper, garlic, paprika and sriracha. Sugar that has not dissolved will not distribute, and the strips it settles on scorch.
- Coat the meat, cover it and refrigerate it overnight but no longer. Pineapple juice carries an enzyme that breaks meat down, and given a second night the strips go mushy at the surface and fall apart on the tray.
- Drain the strips well and lay them out with clear gaps between. This is the sweetest of the jerky marinades on the site, and sugar is what glues one strip to the next.
- Dry at 65 °C for 8 hours. Venison is far leaner than beef and arrives at the same point sooner, so start checking it earlier than you would a beef batch.
- Cool a strip and bend it to a right angle: it should crack at the bend without coming apart. Venison that snaps straight through is overdone, and it will be unpleasantly dry by the time you get to the bottom of the bag.
- Keep it airtight in the fridge for two weeks, or frozen for six months. Game has almost no fat to go rancid, so with venison it is moisture rather than oil that decides how long a batch lasts.
