Dry-cured meat at home

Natural home-made meat products are tasty, healthy and economical. Natural jerky will serve as a full substitute for sausages in stores and will be prepared from those products that the hostess will select for her family.
If the dried meat is preparing for a certain holiday or event, for example, it must be prepared for the New Year, it must be taken into account that the whole process will take at least 10 days.
You can dry your home and pork and beef, and even chicken. It is better to choose pieces from the entrecote portion or ham. You can buy both fresh meat and fresh-frozen. Given that pork is much softer and more tender than beef, it is better to take a piece of lean or low-fat pork from the lumbar or cervical region of the carcass, where the meat has small sebaceous streaks, for self-cooking jerky. The most important condition when choosing meat is freshness. Expired pieces are not suitable for cooking jerky.
Important! Do not choose pieces thicker than four to five cm, otherwise it will be necessary to increase the time for their preparation at each stage for several days.
For one kg of pork you will need the following number of products:
- salt 250 g for dry salting + 250 g for brine;
- garlic, 5-6 cloves;
- spices (bay leaves, peas, coriander seeds, sweet paprika, hot paprika, ground black pepper, rosemary, sage) 50 - 60 grams.
1. With a piece of meat, cut the films and veins. Wash and dry.
2. Pour salt on a table or board and dip the meat several times into it, squeezing it firmly so that the meat is in a dense shell of salt.
3. Put in a pan and send in the refrigerator for three days. Inspect the meat daily and drain the liquid from it; if all the salt has dissolved too early, then it needs to be added.
4. After three days, boil a liter of water, put salt, a few leaves of parsley, five to six peas of pepper, a pinch of coriander seeds.
Cool the brine to 35-30 degrees and lower the meat there.
5. Soak pork in brine in the refrigerator for another three days.
6. Remove the meat from the brine.
Put on one board, cover the second one and put under the load slightly inclined to remove excess liquid.
It is best to install a meat board in a sink or on a pallet to collect draining liquid. In this form, withstand pork for 3 to 5 hours.
7. Prepare a mixture of spices for breading meat. It must include garlic, black pepper, red hot and sweet paprika, rosemary and (or) sage and other herbs as desired.
Grind the mixture with a mortar, break the bay leaf with your hands.
Many of the spices not only give flavor and aroma to jerky, but also have preservative and aseptic properties, act as natural preservatives, keeping the product fresh.
8. Abundantly brew pork in spices.
9. Place the meat in spices in a dense cloth.
A multilayer gauze napkin is also suitable, but it is best to take linen cloth or a towel.
10. As tightly as possible, wrap the meat in a cloth.
Send it to the refrigerator. After a day, inspect the meat.
If the breading mixture is small, then it must be added, if necessary, replace the wet cloth with a dry one. Keep the jerky in the refrigerator for another 48 hours.
11. Store the resulting product in a refrigerator in a dry cloth or in food paper.
The resulting dried pork is an excellent product for cutting meat on a festive table, you can surprise your loved ones and cook dried pork for the New Year or any holiday feast. On weekdays, sandwiches with dried home-made pork will help you to have a bite at work, help out and at a picnic.