Pumpkin and Spice

It's been a busy two weeks! As I mentioned, I've switched to the midnight baker shift at work, Kyle and the family have been in town, and I've been fighting a wicked cold (and missed a few days of work because of it! Blegh!) Before I tell you about all that, though, I have the promised Kyle-blog! (Kyle declined my invitation to write the blog entry himself- instead he gave me the 411 and the pics so I could write it myself.)

Kyle is a wonderful guy- he's patient and understanding, he puts up with my clutter, he didn't complain when I decided to come to Utah, and he gamely tolerates my Alton Brown/Good Eats obsession. He even watches the occasional episode with me... I'm not sure he likes it as much as I do, but I do appreciate the time together.

Inspired by Alton Brown's do-it-yourself MacGyver spirit, Kyle delved into a manly foodie project to keep him busy while I'm gone. The project? Alton Brown's beef jerky. If you watch Good Eats, you may have seen the beef jerky episode. In it, not only does Alton make his own jerky, he makes his own dehydrator!

 Kyle made a few alterations to the recipe each time he made it, but the basic recipe is as follows-

Alton's Beef Jerky
Recipe courtesy www.foodtv.com
Makes about 12 oz jerky

• 1 1/2 - 2lbs flank steak* (Flank steak is AB's suggestion. Kyle recommends London broil.)
• 2/3c worchestershire sauce
• 2/3c soy sauce (Kyle tried one batch with Ponzu sauce in place of the soy sauce, and one batch with Teriyaki sauce, both with excellent results)
• 1 T honey
• 2t black pepper
• 2t onion powder
• 1t liquid smoke (Kyle omitted this, as I don't keep it on hand, and how many things do you really need liquid smoke for?)
• 1t red pepper flakes
• (Kyle also did a batch adding a bit of Thai Chili sauce, which added a hint of sweetness and some more spiciness.)

For the Do-it-yourself dehydrator-

• Box fan
• 4 paper air conditioning filters
• 2 bungee cords

*Kyle has made the jerky three times, using different meat cuts each time. The first time, he used the recommended flank steak, which worked well, but was a little expensive. For the next batch, he used shoulder and eye round, which were too fatty, and resulted in a tough, fatty jerky. For the most recent batch, he went to the local butcher's shop for recommendations. She suggested London broil, which is a lean, inexpensive cut of meat. He also had her thinly slice it for him, which allowed him to get thinner slices than when he tried to do it himself at home.

If you don't have your butcher slice the meat, trim the fat off your cut of meat. Freeze the meat for about an hour to make it easier to slice, then thinly slice against the grain of the meat. (Look- Kyle even used my food safety cutting mats to cut the meat!)

Mix together the remaining ingredients in a gallon ziplock bag and add the meat strips. Squish everything together to evenly cover the meat. Refridgerate for 3 to 6 hours.

After the meat has marinated, remove it from the marinade and pat it dry. If you're using a dehydrator, lay the meat on the racks and dry according to the manfacturer's directions. Otherwise, assemble your do-it-yourself dehydrator.

To make the dehydrator, Kyle used a box fan (borrowed from a co-worker). He took it apart and cleaned it well (you don't want dust on the jerky), then reassembled it. He also used 4 air conditioning filters- Alton uses paper airfilters, but Kyle was unable to find them, so he used fiberglass airfilters. He lined them well with paper towels to protect the jerky from the fiberglass- this increased the drying time a bit. Obviously, if you can find them, paper filters would be better.

Lay your meat in the grooves of 3 of the filters. Stack them, topping them with the empty filter.

Lay the box fan flat, and place the filter stack on top. Secure it with the bungee cords, or, do like Kyle and tape them to the fan with bright yellow duct tape.

Set the fan upright and set to medium. Kyle found that with the paper towels on the filter, he needed to allow more drying time. He allowed the jerky to dry for 12hrs, then untaped the filters and rotated the filters. He then re-attached them and allowed the jerky to dry for another 4-6hrs.

The results? The first two batches were evidentally good enough that his co-workers ate them all, and I didn't get any. The third batch he made right before flying up to Utah to see me, so I got to try what had survived the plane ride. The batch I tried he had used about a 50/50 blend of soy sauce and teriyaki sauce, which gave it a nice sweetness, coupled with the mild burn of the pepper flakes. I'm a big fan of the sweet/spicy flavor combo, so this was a hit with me. The London broil was a very good choice, as it was so lean there were almost no fatty bits on the jerky. (Fat marbling may be a good thing in steaks and prime rib, but when you're drying the meat, the fat just gets chewy and icky.) Since the butcher had sliced the meat, it was nice and thin, and easy to chew.

After batch number two, Kyle had contemplated buying a store-bought dehydrator, but decided against it. The results from the homemade dehydrator were great, plus it was cheap, cheap, cheap to put together. (And the filters can be re-used until they become dirty.)

On a side note, I'd like to share a beef jerky story from my childhood-

For some reason that I can't recall, my brother and I were making beef jerky. I was maybe 9, which would have made Royce about 7. (I have to imagine that we were only making the marinade for the meat, as there were no adults around.) When we got the the salt in the recipe, which was high, as it was beef jerky, my brother protested the quantity, saying it was too much. I argued that beef jerky was supposed to be salty, and he countered by saying that this was Mom's recipe from when she was little, and they didn't have Tupperware or refridgerators back then, so they needed the salt for preservation. (Can you tell we read a lot of Little House on the Prarie books?)

Our compromise was to halve the salt. It wasn't very good beef jerky- jerky really does need to be salty. Oh, and, for the record, there most certainly was refridgeration and Tupperware when my mom was little.