Biltong

Many years ago in Willowdale there was a convenience store called Baxter’s. At a corner inside the store there was a section where you could find foods from South Africa. This is where I first encountered the South African delicacy, Biltong, a dried cured meat, usually beef. It is chewy, and has a very savory meaty and salty taste. You can think of it as a marriage of the beef jerky and prosciutto. But it is not a beef jerky and the way it is made, good nutrients are maintained.

After missing it for such a long time, and based on the information I got from the Internet, the science for making the Biltong is not that complicated, I decided to try and make it myself. The project started last weekend. In order to ensure a control environment, I built a wooden Biltong dryer using some scraped wood panels and some basic electrical supplies I bought, an incandescent lamp and a small USB fan. It took me two afternoons to complete it. The science behind the dryer is steady air circulation where humidity is kept low. The incandescent lamp is only 40W, not to provide heat as you do not use heat to make Biltong, but to control humidity and generates some air movement, warm air rises. The fan is to provide direct airflow to draw moisture from the meat and vents out from the top of the chamber.

The recipe I used for this project is as follow:

• 1 kg Sirloin Tip
• 125 ml Red Wine Vinegar
• 1/4 cup Coriander Seeds (Crushed)
• 1 Tbs Black Peppercorns (Crushed)
• 1 Tbs Kosher Salt
• 1 tsp Paprika
• 1 tsp Cumin

1. Mix the dry seasonings
2. Cut the beef into slices at about 1 cm thick with the grain (do not cut across the grain)
3. Baste the beef slices with the Red Wine Vinegar liberally and sprinkle with the seasonings in a glass or plastic container and put into fridge to marinate for a day
4. After a day, the meat slices are ready to be hung for drying

For my particular project, the Biltong is ready after in the dryer for 5 days.

Biltong has shrunk significantly and the meat looks black in colour. To serve, simply cut the meat into very thin slices. I used a meat cleaver to slice as the dry meat is hard.

The result came close to what I expected. The same savory meaty taste I craved with a hint of sourness. But the saltiness is not quite there. I now realized, with the same volume the kosher salt is actually half the table salt by weight. So, if I continue to use kosher salt for the next batch, I would need to double from 1 Tbs to 2 Tbs of kosher salt.

The thickness of each Biltong is too thin, as such the cut slices for serving are very small. I will double the thickness next time, at least 2 cm thick before drying. This would imply doubling the drying time to 10 days. I might also make the following adjustments to my recipe to come close to the original basic South African one so that I can use that as the baseline for any future creativeness.

• Replace the Red Wine Vinegar with Malt Vinegar
• Eliminate both Paprika and Cumin