Ingredients
- Ruminant meat, I used beef
- Rendered fat from the same, I used suet
Method
- Remove any fat from the meat. This can be done before or after drying. It's a nice snack when removed after drying
- Dehydrate the meat until it is so dry it can be broken into pieces
- Grind, smash, or blend the dried meat to add small as practical
- Weigh the dried meat
- Weigh out the same weight of rendered fat into a microwave or heat proof container
- Heat the fat until it is just melted, I use a microwave 1 minute at a time, or starting with 2 minutes if I'm doing more than 1 kg
- Put the dried meat in a suitably sized mixing bowl
- Add the melted fat to the meat, mix well with a wooden spoon
- Empty the mix into a suitable mold. I use a large casserole dish, once it has set reasonably firm, cut it into pieces. This has set completely, and two pieces are already eaten
Most of the photos are from last time I posted this, the last photo is from my current 2.5kg batch
I said above to use the same amount of fat as meat, I find it better to make it more rich rather than more lean. The batch shown at the end was a bit more than 5% rich - 1.2kg dry beef and 1.3kg fat
You can expect to get 1.5kg dry meat out of 5kg fresh meat
The meat I'm using at the moment is topside (a whole topside is about 5kg), which my butcher cuts into 2mm steaks for easy drying. I always ask for either topside or silverside as they are very lean cuts
The dehydrator I use is a Kalahari Biltong Box, which I like because it is set up for hanging the meat and had more than enough hooks to hang half a topside cut thin
If I had a lesser budget I would have used a cardboard box heated by a 100W heat lamp, with the meat hung from dowels (ensuring there is plenty of airflow in at the bottom)
You need to mix until all the meat is wetted (or whatever the word is when the liquid is lipids), you can use any method you'd use to mix cake batter, the process reminds me of adding the wet ingredients to the flour to make a cake