Post
by Janlab » Tue Nov 04, 2014 15:47
Basic Biltong Recipe:
5 kg beef, silverside, rump or eye round. Cut into 25 - 30 mm strips with the grain. If you like your biltong soft ("wet") in the middle, you cut the strips thicker... You can trim or keep the fat, but it makes the biltong just better!
Cure;
500gr rocksalt, non iodised. (Never fine salt)
250 gr soft ( dark) brown sugar
2 tablespoons ground white pepper (easier than weight)
0.5 cup roasted (important!) coriander, ground coarsly
500 ml brown vinegar
(@ Red; you can work out a quantity of nitrate to be added, I don't know because I don't use it.)
Mix all dry stuff and place into a flat glas bowl.
Sprinkle vinager to wet the bottom of a large enough rectangular plastic or stainless steel container.
Roll each strip of meat in dry mix, and start packing into the container.
When the bottom is covered, sprinkle with vinager to wet all the strips.
Pack another layer and sprinkle.
Repeat until meat is finished, rationing the vinegar appropriately.
Cover and place in fridge for two to six hours depending on thickness of meat, and saltiness required. Be carefull not to make it too salty! Repack halfway through cure period swapping top and bottom strips.
At end of curing time, rinse all rocksalt from strips (important) with vinegar.
Hang in well ventilated cool place, or in my "high tech", or other biltongmaker, keeping air moving, until dry enough to taste. (Thin strips can be eaten as early as three days!). You want to get it "dry to touch" or ("wind dry", as we say) as quickly as possible.
Slice thin and enjoy! Fantastic on buttered full grain bread with sweet tea, or with cheese on biscuits, or just shove handfulls into your mouth! Or chew on a dry piece. Or grind a really dry lean piece and sprinkle over eggs, salad, pizza (typically with mild feta and avocado)
Variations:
Substitute half the vinegar with Worcestor Sauce.
Use other flavours of vinegar, ie cider vinegar, mulled vinegar, red wine vinegar, or even balsamic, but not white.
For more pepper, lightly dust strips with ground white pepper after rinsing, or roll in cracked black pepper.
For heat, roll in chilli flakes after rinsing.
For more coriander flavour, roll in coarsly ground toasted coriander after rinsing.
For garlic, sprinkle garlic flake over each layer before wetting with vinegar. Fresh finely chopped is nicer, but more difficult to distribute evenly
Use whatever other spice you like! As long as it marries with coriander.
For my "big biltong" I use the same proportions of salt and spice, but slightly more vingar, to cover the meat. But I use smaller containers. Also, I leave in the brine much longer, turning twice a day. I roll in coriander before hanging.
Jan L
Last edited by
Janlab on Tue Nov 04, 2014 15:58, edited 1 time in total.
