BEEF JERKY!
Looking for a healthy but still really tasty snack? Beef jerky is low in calories and long-lastingly filling. And thanks to the high protein content, the dried pieces of meat cut into strips are also real muscle food. In the USA, the motherland of beef jerky, you can find the meat snacks in every supermarket. But meat fans in Germany are also getting a taste for it. Here it is often traditional butchers who season high-quality local beef and hang it in the drying cabinet. In addition to beef, almost any other meat can of course be processed into jerky. If you like something more exotic, you can try the African variant - biltong. This is also made from beef here, but in South Africa ostrich or springbok are often baked in the oven. Whether beef jerky or biltong - the dried meat can also be made at home without much effort. FIRE&FOOD shows how to make delicious beef jerky in your own drying cabinet.
Maximilian Settele preparing for drying
At Maximilian Settele's, decent pieces of meat go into the drying oven. The master butcher from Augsburg doesn't believe in small things - his beef jerky consists of finely cut strips from the topside of beef - the size of a roulade. "My customers like the dried meat best like this, in one piece that you can bite into," he says. Around 30 kilos of beef jerky go over the counter at the long-established butcher's every week - the "meat snacks" are extremely popular with customers.
Whether from the supermarket, the butcher or homemade - Germans have discovered beef jerky for themselves. Five years ago there were almost only American products such as Jack Link's jerky, but today a large number of small manufacturers and butchers have dried meat products in their range. Every trend has its counter-current - the same is true of veganism and abstinence from meat, according to industry sources. Dried beef is far more popular with German consumers. If you talk to wholesalers, there is almost no demand for other types of meat such as turkey.
What is slowly finding its way from the USA to Europe and Germany as a trendy food has long been a popular high-protein snack there. The first settlers and cowboys copied the technique of drying and preserving meat from the Native Americans. The word "ch'arki" simply means "dried meat". In contrast to today, the "original jerky" consisted mainly of dried buffalo or alpaca meat, which the natives took with them on their hunting trips as long-lasting food. But this original jerky must have been a pretty bland affair; it was only the European settlers who added salt, spices or sweet marinades to their dried meat.
Dehydrated meat is not only found in America. This method of preserving meat also has a long tradition on the African continent. Apparently, even the ancient pharaohs liked dried meat. Archaeologists have found remains of dried meat in graves, which were probably intended to serve as provisions on the way to the afterlife.
In Germany, the best known, apart from beef jerky, is South African biltong. Even though the air-dried meat is very similar to jerky, there are crucial differences in the way it is made. Biltong is usually dried in one piece and, like ham, is cut into thin strips after it has been aged. In addition to beef, ostrich, springbok, kudu and other African wild animals are used for biltong. The meat is marinated with vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper and then dried exclusively in the air in the African sun. The degree of drying determines the shelf life. Half-dried biltong has a shelf life of three weeks - fully dried it can be kept for up to two years. However, the meat must then be cut into pieces and tenderized before consumption.
Maximilian Settele only uses the topside of local bulls for his beef jerky. "Female animals have too much intramuscular fat, which creates unsightly white spots in the jerky," explains the butcher. The meat is cut into slightly thinner roulades, which are seasoned with nitrite salt, pepper and paprika. Opinions differ on the subject of nitrite salt - while some want it to be more "natural" and swear by rock salt, others value curing salt, which gives the meat a beautiful red color. "For me, it's also a matter of food safety," says Settele. From discussions with customers, he knows that the beef jerky sometimes travels to Tuscany in a caravan for ten days - in the butcher's opinion, the product has to be able to withstand customers not storing it optimally.
For his second variety, "Smoky Pepper," smoked pepper is added to the meat. "The peppered jerky is more for men - with normal beef jerky, I have to make sure my wife leaves me some," jokes the butcher. The meat is vacuum-sealed by professionals, which allows the spices to be absorbed particularly well. "Everyone should have a vacuum sealer at home - it's not just useful for marinating meat," advises the butcher.
Settele's personal love of jerky comes - of course - from a vacation in the USA. "The first time I tried beef jerky from a large commercial brand was in a gas station - it tasted like dog food," he remembers. Shortly afterwards, he discovered fresh homemade jerky on the counter in a diner - and was delighted. "It was a completely new taste experience," says the butcher. The chocolate-coated beef jerky that he discovered shortly afterwards in a grocery store in Hollywood, however, did not make it into his store as a product.
"Beef is a particularly good meat for jerky," says the butcher. Even if laypeople try to do it themselves using a dehydrator or stove, not much can go wrong with beef. "In contrast to pork, for example, the risk of germs in beef is quite low," explains the expert. The shelf life is due to the temperature, but also to the removal of liquid. "Salt and drying stop the microbiological decomposition of the meat, which makes it shelf-stable," he explains. In his butcher's shop, the jerky is stored openly so that the air can circulate. "The best thing to do is to cover it with baking paper, for example - that's enough." This way, you can save on "oxygen absorbers" that are supposed to draw moisture out of the air in airtight containers.
BEEF JERKY homemade
Ingredients:
• 500 g boiled beef without fat cap (alternatively roulade meat)
• 15 g salt (alternatively nitrite curing salt for reddening)
• 2 tbsp coriander seeds
• 2 tbsp black peppercorns
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp garlic granules
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 15 ml apple cider vinegar
• 50 ml apple juice
• Beech pellets for smoking
Preparation:
Cut the low-fat meat (fat goes rancid after drying) across the grain into strips about 3 to 5 mm thick. Grind the coriander seeds, pepper and mustard seeds together and mix with the other ingredients to make the marinade. Then season the marinade to taste; it should have a strong flavor. Put the strips of meat and the marinade in a sealable freezer bag and leave to rest in the fridge for about 12 hours.
Heat up the smoker or smokehouse (we used a pellet stove) and regulate it to between 60 and 70 °C. Hang the strips of meat on hooks like fish for smoking and hang them in the smoker. Dry at a constant temperature for up to 8 hours - the time depends on your own taste and how long you want to keep the beef jerky. In general, the meat dries faster on the outside at the selected temperature and gets a thin, leathery layer, but drying in the core of the meat can take longer. A pressure or bending test shows the state of drying. If the jerks are to be kept for a longer period of time, they should be completely dry. To do this, you can let them air dry for a further 3 to 4 days in the grill or smokehouse.
