Instructions

1. Fat is the enemy of anything that has to keep, and this is the only omelet-bite variation with meat in it. Buy the leanest sausage mince you can find, and take the trouble described below to get rid of what is left.
2. Steam the potatoes whole in their skins for a quarter of an hour, then plunge them into iced water so they stop cooking.
3. Peel them once cold and grate them coarsely — about two thirds of their raw weight comes back as usable potato.
4. Work the seasoned breadcrumbs right through the raw sausage meat and rest it in the fridge for a quarter of an hour. The crumbs take up the fat and juices that would otherwise run out in the pan.
5. Pull the chilled mixture into small pieces and cook them over a medium-low heat until browned through, which takes about ten minutes. Low and slow renders the fat out; a hot pan seals it in.
6. Tip the meat onto a plate lined with paper towel and press it down with more paper. Every bit of grease removed here is a week of shelf life later.
7. Get the oven up to 177 °C while the meat drains, and paper-line a tin of about 30.5 cm by 22.9 cm.
8. Whisk the eggs, fold in the potato and the drained meat, and spread the mixture level so the corners hold as much as the middle.
9. Bake for thirty minutes on the middle shelf, then turn the oven off and give it ten more inside. Cool it on a rack before you touch it.
10. Peel the paper away, turn the slab onto a board, and cut it into 13 mm cubes by scoring columns and then rows.
11. Arrange the cubes on mesh trays with air space around each one.
12. Dehydrate at 63 °C for 7 hours, then cut a few cubes open. The meat in the centre must be as dry as the egg around it, and it is always the last part to get there.
13. Cool them fully and seal them in Mylar with an oxygen absorber. Meat and egg fat together make this the variation most worth taking that seriously.
14. To rehydrate, soak in a pot for five minutes, boil for one, and leave it covered in a cosy for a quarter of an hour. A thermos wants boiling water and twenty minutes to an hour.