/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>4098193

anyone of them are fine for fruit since they require lower temps than meat. It essentially boils down how much fruit you want to dry at a time and go for size rather than power.

Grats amigo on the dehydrator! I have one myself and I've made quite a bit of jerky with it over the years.

The Jerky gun allows you to make those jerky strips or sticks out of ground meat. The most common thing is to get the leanest ground beef you can get your hands on, like at least 93% lean or higher. That gun most likely came with some seasoning and curing packets, just follow the directions of the packets in how much of each to use. Mix them up and then use the gun to squeeze the mixture on those plastic trays in whatever shape you want.

For regular jerky same rules apply, leanest cut of beef possible (top round, eye of round etc) cut into strips around 1/4-1/8" thick. For marinades if you're pressed for time you can use Lawry's 30 minute marinades off the shelf in a pinch. 2 bottles of them will cure about 4lbs of meat. Just marinate whatever meat you're cooking overnight and you'll be good to go. Set your dehydrator to the maximum heat and let it go. It usually takes about 7-12 hours depending on the thickness of the meat and how dry you want the jerky to be. After that, just pat it dry a bit with paper towels (fat will squeeze out of the meat as it dries and pool on top of the meat, you'll want to mop it up before you put it away so it doesn't go rancid).

And that's it! Enjoy your jerky.

Well if we're talking about backpacking camping and not car camping, here's some things I came up with my dad when hiking the John Muir Trail. You're basically going for 2 weeks at 10,000 feet for 20ish miles a day so we had to kinda carbo load to keep our weight down supplemented with very dry homemade jerky, jerky sticks and trail mix with lots of peanuts/cashews/walnuts/almonds for our protein needs.

For meals, prior to the trip we'd prepare sealed ziploc bags that'd usually consist of some easily reconstituable starch like instant mash potatoes, minute rice or crushed ramen noodles mixed with some kind of freeze dried beans, soup or chili mix. We'd also mix in instant miso soup packets with couscous. We'd then use a jetboil container to boil the water and pour the ziploc pouch into it to minimize packaging and waste (you have to pack everything out) so all we'd have left to take with us was empty ziplocs. This kept us going for a 2 week 240 mile hike.

>>3940887

Nice looking stuff there! Yeah that glistening stuff is actually rendered fat that got squeezed out of the meat as the muscle fibers contracted as they dried. Generally if you plan to store or ship jerky, you want to mop up those "wet" spots with a paper towel or something like that to remove the excess pooled fat so it won't attract bacteria.

Otherwise, good looking stuff! Hope you enjoy it. :)

>>3936242

Welp if you're kitbashing a dryer together, Alton Brown has a good one using furnace filters and box fans that do a pretty decent job! Let me see if I can dig up a link.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Box-Fan-Jerky/

There ya go!

Hrm, if you're not outright searing the meat, I can't imagine how you'd eliminate that "scum" that forms from steaming/boiling. It happens all the time when I don't full on sear it in a high heat pan, and even then it still happens a little until I get around to caramalizing that side of the chicken cut. It's basically the fatty juices getting squeezed out as the muscle contracts from cooking.

>>3936201

True, in this sense, if you're not going to keep the meat for more than a week or so, or if it's going to be stored in the fridge or freezer, then rigorous fat removal isn't so important, but if your'e shipping Jerky to a friend, or planning to munch on it say for a 2 week long backpacking trip in the High Sierras, (John Muir Trail Represent!) then it becomes a lot more important.

>>3936191

Aye, well if you want the product to remain edible yes, it is. Essentially fat will retain more moisture than the muscle tissue. Thusly, if you truly wanted to create "dried fat", the muscle would have dried out much more by that point to the point it would be pretty inedible. I actually made that mistake once.

I forgot to turn off my Dehydrator (it unfortunately doesn't have a timer, just unplugs to shut off) and the meat dried so much that it became crumbly dried chipped beef, which consequently had barely any taste of the marinade or even of beef left. It tasted pretty nasty.

Drying is all about eliminating moisture which is what bacteria needs to thrive and to preserve fresh cuts of meat for longer periods of time.

Think of the concept of a patch of dirt in the middle of the Mojave desert and a patch of fetid swamp water. The swamp water is generally going to have more bacteria than arid burning hot dirt, it's just how bacteria thrives, with moisture.

>>3936177

Plus dried fat, even when it's not going bad, tastes like ass IMHO. Just a personal preference really, and that's coming from a guy who makes my own Pancetta which I suppose is the one exception to that statement.

>>3936174

Fat amigo. Fat. Simply put, because you're not actually "cooking" the meat, the fat in the meat is like a magnet for bad bacteria because of the higher moisture content present in fat vs muscle. The more fat in your jerky, the more tender it will be, but it will also spoil a heck of a lot quicker. It also will go rancid if exposed to too much sunlight, where the regular beef muscle tissue, will not. It's just more of a preventative measure more than anything else.

>>3935759
>>3935771

Damn that sounds nice mang!

OP Pretty much you can marinate your meat with whatever flavor you like. If you're just starting out, Lawry's 30 minute marinades are a pretty decent simple way to get started without having to think too much about what you're putting into the marinade and will result in some pretty good jerky. You'll most likely need between 12-24 hours for a solid marinade, just FYI.

For meat, the cardinal rules are:

As lean a cut as you possibly can IE Top Round, Eye of Round, Flap Meat, Flank etc, trimmed of as much extra fat as you can.

Slice the Meat thin - No thicker than 1/4" thick otherwise it will take too long to dry. You can partially freeze the meat (not fully frozen) to make slicing easier if you don't have a meat slicer.

Since you have a dehydrator, set it to the maximum setting it can go. Usually this means 160 degrees or around that. That'll ensure the fastest drying time for your jerky and less chance for bad bacteria to form.

After cooking, simply bag it up and store it in a cool dry dark place or the fridge/freezer.

>>3928244

Dyomahgahd, I LOVE Hendricks Gin. Makes the best G&Ts, and it's so darn crisp chilled it's great.

If not Gin, then Aberlour Single Malt, or 10 Cane rum with some ice.

Pretty much all this. I only use Nitrate if I'm going to be shipping it cross country/overseas to someone, if it's just for me or for friends, I use a heavy duty ziploc bag, throw some silica dessicant packets in there with the jerky, and keep it in the fridge/freezer or the coolest darkest part of my pantry.

As long as you've trimmed as much fat as possible, and don't expose it to light as much as possible, it'll last you several weeks, months if it's frozen even.

ITT eating jerky in the dark by the light of our monitors.

Only thing I can think of would be some kind of "bitters" like Angostra or some kinda or herbal bitter blend, that or really minerally soda water.

>>3915368

Hrm with that amount of marinade and given a 24 hour marinade time, you could probably marinade at least 2lbs of meat, probably 3 depending on how thin you cut the strips. If you're willing to splurge and don't want to kitbash, I'm a fan of the Nesco dehydrators. The entry level ones are fairly reasonable and as long as you go with the model that has at least 500 watts of power, it'll serve you well. Average dry time for 2lbs of jerky is about 3-5 hours depending on how dry you want your jerky.

Here's the newer model of the one I have. It works great and with about 9 trays you can dry about 10lbs of meat at a time.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0090WOCN0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&keywords=nesco%20food%20dehydrato
r&qid=1349418364&sr=8-1

The only way you can really "fake" ricotta cheese that I've found works is for each cup of cottage cheese, mix 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese and 1 egg. That sort of replicates the taste, and will work well in a pinch if you can't get your hands on real ricotta cheese.

That said, use real ricotta if you can swing it plox.

>>3883948

Ooo another important thing I forgot to mention. This may vary for your tastes, but I strongly recommend making the fries as crispy as possible if you're going to be making it yourself. With all of the extra stuff (especially the salsa/pico de gallo), the fries are going to get soggy very quick. Best way to keep them crispy for longer is to cook them crispier than you would a normal fry. Then again, I kinda like mine all mashed together with glorious cheesy meaty salsy goodnes.....


.....

Excuse me, I believe Viva Tacos Las Estrellas is getting some more of my money.

>>3883908

Damn that sucks amigo. :(

If you're desperate to replicate the taste, it's fairly doable. Just start with some frozen french fries and prep em how you like, then lay em on a plate, just like nachos. Then layer nacho cheese, minced onions, chopped tomato and cilantro (or just pre-made salsa if you're pressed for time) mixed with marinated flank steak grilled and chopped. Then just pour all of that over the fries and dig in. It'll be some work, but that's essentially what Carne Asada fries are.

>>3883870

A lot of hole in the wall taco joints will usually have them. Best bet I can recommend is use a restaurant search site like yelp.com and search for Carne Asada Fries, and you should see a list near where you live that serves em.

fuck yes. The place that makes it awesome nearby (Tacos Las Estrellas) uses nacho cheese instead of shredded cheese and combined with shredded carne asada...it's definitely a colon clogger of joyous things.

>>3882518

Well if you're looking for a new belgian beer, I'd give Bacchus a try. It's a Flanders Oud Bruin style of belgian ale. It's very light, just a touch sweet with a nice sour finish. Really really easy drinking beer.

>>3882404

Fuck yeah Lambic! Lindemann's framboise and peach lambics are probably some of the tastiest beers I've ever tasted. They are a bit on the sweet/sour side, but they're very low alcohol (something like 3-4%) and they go great with pretty much any dessert or just by themselves. Yum!

>>3881223

I do love talk about Gulden Draak! That feisty golden dragon has bewitched me so...at least in small bottles. Too many and I'll be staring at the floor....

>>3882353
Another one I've had recently is a new release from Russian River. Row 2/Hill 56. It's another IPA style beer made with only one type of hops and previously was only available direct from their brewery through the bar or through growlers but they just did a limited release a few weeks ago and I snagged a few bottles.

Really really drinkable IPA that doesn't fry your tastebuds like Pliny does. I really enjoyed it!