But beef jerky is expensive. After I managed to get over my previous opinion of it as being akin to dog food I decided that in order to support Evan's habit I would have to make my own.
I saw a recipe for ground beef jerky on wellness mama's website. I adapted it to suit our needs, it's really easy and surprisingly yummy. Not like dog food at all ( not that I've tasted dog food...)
This is what I did:
To 1 kg of beef mince I added
1 Tablespoon of Hymalayan salt
2 tablespoons of dried mixed herbs
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
5 crushed garlic cloves
By hand I mixed it all together and then left it in the fridge overnight so that the flavours could mingle.
The next day I rolled it out onto two large greased baking trays. I rolled it as thin as I could manage, about 1/2 cm. Then sprinkled the top with more salt.
I put the two trays into the oven at it's lowest setting. I measured the temperature using an oven thermometer so I know that I had the oven at 80 degrees Celsius. I propped open the oven door with a wooden spoon to allow a little air flow and then left the jerky for 8 hours.
At the end of the 8 hours I flipped it over and sprinkled it with salt again and then left it for another 4 hours.
When it was done I got it out of the oven, cooled it a bit and then using scissors cut it into small pieces.
I am pretty happy with the end result. Evan and Ellie seem to like it too.
I have put the cut pieces into two jars. One jar is in the fridge and the other is in the freezer, though I doubt it will last long enough to warrant having it stored there.
Now I am pretty keen to give it a go with some other flavours. I reckon I could get away with drying it for slightly longer too if a more chewy texture is desired.
No comments:
Post a Comment