Dried meat

: food, December 09 2020 ▶

Once in a while I like to have some intense flavor next to the fine glass of wine. Salami works just fine, but I go a step further by making some home-dried meat.
The meat:
Beef, pork, game meat will do (anything but poultry, although some people claim good results). The main goal is to be less-fatty, no membranes, veins, threads, etc. Just a clean slab of meat. Ideal proportions - 30cm, 10cm, 5cm, ~1kg. I used faux-fillet (sirloin) beef. Of course nowhere near the ideal proportions, but hey, there will be a "next time" for sure.
The tricky part - curing:
There are many ways to do it. I have tried them all and the "controlled dry curing" works best for me. All relative to 1kg of meat:
- 15gr regular salt
- 15gr curing salt
- 2gr sugar
- spices of your choice - ground fenugreek (cemen), ground black pepper, cumin - these are just for the curing process, so do not overdo it here.
- some working with your hands - rub the sugar, then the salt, then the spices into the meat.
- if you cannot vacuum-seal the meat, put the meat in a plastic bag, put it into a bowl of water, then tie it. This will ensure as little air inside as possible.
- put the bag in a cool place for 7 days (10 is also fine).
- turn it upside-down each day and massage it a bit.
Drying:
- put the meat out of the bag, rinse and pat-dry with kitchen paper. Moisture is unwanted.
- press it down with some weight overnight.
- put a hanging thread through the meat.
- mix your favorite spices, enough to fully cover it. I use again 1ts (tea spoon) ground fenugreek, 1/4ts cumin, 1ts sweet paprika and 1/2ts cayenne pepper, 1ts dried summer or winter savory. Rub the stuff all over the meat.
- leave it hanging in a cool, dry, airy place for 10 days.

...well I have to admit I cheated a bit on the last step, but the result was exactly the same. So I do not a have dry, airy place. Mostly because of the local climate. But I have an oven with a fan, that can be tuned down to 35C. 8 hours inside, with the lid slightly open to let the moisture out, did the task just fine. After that the meat was not 100% as I would like it to be, but I put it in kitchen paper and then in the fridge, so after 2 days it was "perfetto"!