Dehydrated Meat

Spicy Ginger Jerky

Name: Spicy Ginger Jerky
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 7 h
Total time: 7 h 20 min
Yield: Makes 1/2 pound jerky
Ingredients: 4 3/4 pounds flank steak; 3 1/4 cups ginger ale; 6 3/4 tablespoons brown sugar; 3 1/4 tablespoons salt; 2 1/4 tablespoons dry mustard (like Colman's); 3 1/4 teaspoons cayenne pepper; 3 1/4 teaspoons liquid smoke

3.7 (321)

I love using this marinade with flank steak but it also works with pork and fish. Grinding the meat will give the jerky a different textureless tough and easier to chew. You'll need a jerky gun for this. It works much like a pastry bag (which you can use instead), in that you fill it with the ground meat mixture and can then squeeze it out into thin strips or sticks in a uniform manner, making a more attractive jerky stick.

Serves Makes 1/2 pound jerky
Prep Time 20 minutes
Dehydrating Time 7 hours
Total Time 7hrs 20m

Ingredients

4 3/4 pounds flank steak
3 1/4 cups ginger ale
6 3/4 tablespoons brown sugar
3 1/4 tablespoons salt
2 1/4 tablespoons dry mustard (like Colman's)
3 1/4 teaspoons cayenne pepper
3 1/4 teaspoons liquid smoke

Instructions

Trim the flank steak of all fat and chill the pieces before grinding. Warm meat smears in a grinder and the fat separates out as a paste that will never dry.
Grind it to the texture of mince and mix the ginger ale, brown sugar, salt, mustard powder, cayenne and liquid smoke through it thoroughly with your hands. Ground meat has no grain to hide an uneven mix, so any patch you miss will taste of nothing.
Work the mixture for a minute longer than feels necessary until it starts to feel tacky. That stickiness is the protein binding, and it is the only thing holding a formed strip together.
Load the jerky gun or a piping bag with a 1/4" to 1/2" tip, and rest the mixture in the fridge if it has warmed up in your hands. Soft mixture spreads sideways the moment it leaves the nozzle.
Pipe lines onto the drying sheets about 1/2" wide and 8" long, then press each one lightly flat with your fingers. A round strip dries to a hard shell with a raw core, which on ground meat is a real problem rather than a texture one.
Dehydrate at 160 °F for 7 hours, and blot the strips with paper partway through if fat has beaded on the surface. Ground meat renders more than sliced meat does.
A finished stick bends without snapping and tears apart in a dry, crumbly break rather than a stringy one. Ground jerky never goes leathery the way sliced jerky does, so it is the break you judge and not the bend.
Cool the sticks on a rack, then keep them in a sealed jar in the fridge for two weeks or frozen for three months. Ground meat has far more surface area than a sliced strip, which is exactly why this one does not belong in a pantry.