I thought good preserved meat recipes deserved a place of their own here. I'm including Jerkey, Smoked Meats, dried meats, cured meats . . . meats preserved in such a way that they don't need refrigeration.

What are your favorite recipes? Jerky and dried or smoked meats make good ingredients too, so I'm hoping there will also be some recipes for what to make WITH the yummy stuff.

Please post your favorite recipes for them and what to do with them.

Well, I was surprised Tuesday by a call from my favorite butcher. They were calling their customers to offer a deal . . . Beef Flank steak for 90 cents a pound if it was picked up between 7:30am and 10am the next day, must be ordered by phone. It turns out that a catering company had ordered some huge amount, paid for half, then backed out. It had been delivered and the butcher decided to just get his money back out of it because there wasn't room to MOVE in his chiller. So . . . on an impulse, I ordered 100lbs.

I vac sealed 32 lbs for later use in Fajitas (pounded the bejeebers out of it, vac sealed it in portions suitable for our family, 7 meals).

The rest I sliced for Jerky. We were almost out anyway . . . so far, I've made four recipes and they're turning out really yummy. I've never made this much at once before, so I had to "scale up" my methods.

I've never made this much jerky before. I did NOT look forward to slicing all that meat by hand. So, I set out to figure out a way to make it easier. Here's what worked.

I used an electric knife to slice partially frozen meat just a few degrees off the grain!
As far as I'm concerned, this is the TRICK to making good jerky. If you slice along the grain, it's just too hard to bite off, If you slice across the grain, it just falls apart, BUT if you slice a few degrees off the grain . . . perfection. Essentially, the "strings" of meat end up long enough to hold together and short enough that you can tear it off without breaking your jaw.

My method of drying Jerky is simple . . . you need a lot of air movement, just a tiny bit of heat, and a way to keep the critters away. A cardboard box, box fan. Inside, I put aluminum foil on the bottom, then stacked up the grill racks, and the racks DH made with some leftover moldings and fiberglass screen material (he used little chunks of the wood to make standoffs so they'd stack with a gap. This allowed me to dry about 25 lbs of meat at once and it worked great.


I sit the box in our sunroom, but honestly, if your house is air conditioned it's OK. This much airflow will dry the meat really fast. Mine was all dry in about 12 hours and it turned out just perfect.

In half the box, I used racks I already have (from the oven, cooling racks, and the smoker), the other half has the nice neat stack that DH built.

Basic Jerky
(not spicy)

3-4 lbs lean boneless beef Sliced about 1/8" slightly off the grain
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon black pepper (freshly ground fine is best)
4 garlic cloves (through a garlic press with its juice)
note: you can substitute 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 teaspoons of liquid smoke

I just put it all in a big gallon sized ziploc bag and squeeze out most of the air.
Squish it around and put it in the fridge for about half a day (at least 2 hours, no more than about 6). If left too long, the meat seems to have a crumbly texture.

Dry off the meat and place it on the racks.
Dry either in a food dehydrator, an oven propped open, set on 140f, or in the rig I described in an earlier post.

This is a great jerky to use for "cowboy stew" also.

Cowboy Stew

1 cup beef jerkey pieces
1 cup dried tomato
1 cup dried potato pieces (slices are fine)
1 tablespoon dried red bell pepper (green is too strong)
1 tablespoon dried onion flakes or pieces
1 tsp herb mix (mine has 1 part basil, 1 part oregano, 2 parts celery leaves)
1/2 tsp. garlic powder (or dried garlic slivers)
pinch of pepper flakes
1/2 cup dried carrot chips
4-5 cups of water
1 Tablespoon of Bisto Granules (optional)

Noodles ( I always carry egg noodles)

Put everything except the herbs, noodles, and Bisto granules in three cups of water to rehydrate for a half hour or so. Make sure there is a lid on the pan to keep the bugs and critters out.

Bring to a boil and simmer until the dried veggies are mostly done, add water as necessary to keep it from sticking, it should be soupy.

Add the herbs and the Bisto Granules, stir well.

Add the noodles, they will cook and absorb most of the excess liquid, add boiling water if you need to.

Note, If you are using any fresh veggies (like potato or carrot, the carrot should go in after the jerky has softened a bit, the potato should go in for the last 15 minutes only).

My half sister gave me this recipe, I tried it for the first time this week. It's outrageously good for "eating" jerky. I haven't tried to cook with it.

Marinade for Beef Jerky
Note: this is a restaurant sized recipe, it can be scaled down:

1 bottle San-J Szechuan Hot and Spicy sauce (The second recipe, I cut this back to 1/2 bottle)
1 bottle Allegro Marinade Original Flavor
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (I ground it fresh)
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper (I used mixed green/black/pink peppercorns)
2 Tablespoons liquid smoke

Mix all the ingredients in a quart jar and put it in the fridge for a day or two.
Use it to marinate your meat ( I marinated 8 lbs with this and I probably could have done more.)
I did marinate with the vac sealer, I made a long bag that would hold it all and just ran the sealer till the liquid started to get close to the seal. This let me just flip it over on the shelf a couple of times as it marinates overnight.

I shook off the meat and laid it on the racks, then dried as usual. Because the sunroom is quite warm, the "dryer" pretty much stayed at about 135f while it dried. The house smelled WONDERFUL.

DH and the boys just can't stop munching this stuff. I put it in quart jars int he pantry and they seem to be disappearing fast!

This recipe is from a really old Ball Canning Book (like 50 years old).

3 pounds lean beef sliced thin (less than 1/4")
1 cup catsup
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1-2 glurps of Tobasco sauce (no more)

Marinate beef strips overnight (about 10-12 hours).
Drain beef and dry in a dehydrator.

This makes seriously good cowboy stew too. It's a good recipe.

This Jerkey recipe came with our "Texas style" smoker. The firebox was on the far end, quite small, and the "smoking area" never really got above 200 most of the time.

We don't have the smoker anymore, but I still use the recipe for jerky. It's a Chewy one and tastes almost exactly like the jerky that you can get in Hawaii.

I usually make this when DH is smoking fish or something in the smoker he built (out of flowerpots. Ours is a tall terra cotta urn, with a little hotplate in the bottom that has a pie pan for some hardwood sawdust and slivers. the lid is just a big terra cotta saucer. DH got the plans online somewhere. I'll ask him where and put a link if I can.

Here's the recipe:
4 garlic cloves (pressed)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon onion powder
1-2 teaspoon chinese chile sauce (or Frank's Red Hot works too)
1 teaspoon black pepper

Slice beef or other meat into thin strips.
Mix all the items together and marinate for at least a few hours or overnight.
Place the meat on foil in the coolest part of the smoker for about an hour
fold the foil up loosly so the jerky is mostly in sort of a bundle and then cook for about 45 minutes more, until chewy and dry, don't let it burn.
Lay out to cool and eat.

This jerky never lasts more than a couple of days in our house . . . I just don't know how long it lasts.