Home Made Spicy Beef Jerky
Ingredients:
Top round roast / top round steak
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Pepper
Some red pepper, or whatever you want for spice
1/2 teaspoon Garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon Onion powder
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup teriyaki sauce
1/3 Worcestershire sauce
Additional:
Gallon zip lock bag
Aluminium foil
Tooth picks
Everything for the sauce:
Top round steak:
Before doing anything else, stick the steak into the freezer for a few hours, so it's firm all the way through. (You need to do this if you want clean cut, thin strips of meat.)
Ok mix the sauce ingredients (everything but the meat) into a bowl, make sure you get it mixed pretty good. Should come out looking like this:
Now pour it into the gallon ziplock bag:
Take a one of the slabs of streak (I only have enough oven space to do 1 slab at a time.) Cut off all the fat you can to start:
Now all you have to do is cut thing strips with a sharp knife, cutting against the grain of the meat. You don't want strips any thicker then 1/4" MAX. (Really I try and keep them around 1/8" or thinner myself.)
Here it is all cut up, you wont be able to get perfect strips all the time and there will be some small leftover pieces of meat. Keep those, just make sure they aren't too thick.
Ha ha! Now just place the meat into the bag with the sauce. Resist the urge to just pile it in there, try and set the meat in orderly making sure each piece gets soaked in the sauce. (Makes it much easier when you have to remove it too.)
Now you need to zip 85% of the bag closed and push the air inside out the remaining hole.
Once you get all the air out you can zip it completely closed. This basically submerges the meat completely in the sauce, meaning you don't need to make nearly as much sauce. Like if you were just going to use a bowl to marinate it.
Set that bad boy in the fridge for at least 8 hours. (I just keep it in there over night.)
Now once your ready to dry it set some foil on the bottom shelf of the oven to catch drips:
Clean the top rack real good, it's the cooking surface. Lay foil on one side with a bunch of tiny holes for those extra piece of meat that you couldn't cut into strips:
Get the meat ready:
Lay the strips across the rack, the really tiny spare pieces go on the foil, and the medium sized pieces get a toothpick stuck through them and that is set across the rails:
Set the oven to it's lowest setting:
Slide the racks in and prop the door open a crack with a wooden spoon. (Plastic could melt.)
Now it's a waiting game. Don't leave it completely unattended, the thicker the meat the longer it takes to dry. The pieces on the foil should be turned over after about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. When I make it, it usually takes the long strips about 3 1/3 hours to get dry enough to be called jerky. Just check it every hour and remove pieces as they dry to your preference.
2 hours in:
The strips are done in this pic, the ones on the toothpicks and foil need another hour:
Mmmmmmmmmmm. Tastes great:
If you don't like spice just leave out the red peppers and even the regular pepper if you are a wussy. :-)