I bought a piece of beef and cut it into 6 inch strips, and trimmed off the fat pieces. These tiny pieces went into the frying pan and soon turned into little gristly pieces of pure pleasure for Monty who ate them very obediently.
The longer strips were put aside.
Into a bowl I added Tabasco hot sauce, sugar, salt, Worchestershire sauce, Soya sauce, chili powder, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and crushed coriander seeds which I had previously roasted.
Then into this mixture I placed the beef strips and left it all to marinade for 24 hours.
Then I turned the oven to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. I have learned since my last experience that I can turn my oven on to 150 degrees by selecting the 'warm' option. This is a very significant milestone in my life - figuring this out. It is an electric oven.
I bought a box of flattened toothpicks for 69 cents and inserted one into the top of each strip after I removed the bowl from the fridge (note that I did not marinade this on the kitchen counter for 24 hours).
The toothpicks enabled the strips to be hung from the oven rack with the greatest of care in hopes that St. Nicholas would be there. It was - by this time - 8 PM so I left the strips hanging above an aluminum sheet over night. Monty kept vigil beside the oven for as long as he could.
The next morning (groggy Saturday morning) I removed the stiff, dry, yet still flexible pieces of beefy heaven from the oven. I put them on a plate so that I would have a photogenic layout, and assembled the strips beside photos of potatoes that I dug up from the back garden. These are very small. More in a following post about these potatoes. My focus now is to share the beef jerky with you all.
It tastes better than anything ever in the whole world.
Cheers,
Mungo
.JPG)
