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Biltong Recipes
BiltongBeli Personal Drier Recipe
Biltong Recipe 2
Biltong Recipe 3
Biltong Recipe 4
Biltong Recipe 5
Biltong Recipe 6
Biltong Recipe 7
Biltong Recipe 8




Traditional Beef Biltong                       Game (Venison) Biltong


Biltong and Spices

BiltongBeli Personal Drier Recipe

Use good quality roasting meat (e.g. sirloin or Silverside)

You Will Need:

- 2Kg Meat
- 20ml Brown Sugar
- 75ml Brown Vinegar
- 25ml Worcestershire Sauce
- Biltong Spice

Then:

Slice meat into strips.
Sprinkle the Vinegar & Worcestershire sauce over the meat.
Sprinkle 100g of Biltong Spice onto both sides of the meat evenly.
Leave meat in a covered container for approximately 12 hours.
Hang the meat in in your Personal Biltong Drier and leave the fan running continuously until meat
has dried according to your preference (3-5days).
Other Spices can be added to your spice mix according to your taste,
e.g. Garlic, chilli or peri-peri

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BILTONG - Recipe 2

This BILTONG RECIPE is for the basic South African beef biltong. Biltong can be produced in various flavours by adding things like garlic or chilli peppers to the recipe. Personally, I find the original plain biltong the most enjoyable.
(Scale as required)
· 25 lb beef (top round / sirloin / London broil / eye of round)
· 4 pints warm water
· 1 ¼ lb fine salt
· ½ cup brown sugar
· ½ cup coriander, coarsely ground
· 2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
· 1 tbsp black pepper, ground
· 1 cup red wine vinegar
· 2 tsp saltpetre (optional)
Cut the meat along the natural dividing lines of the muscles of the meat of choice Cut into strips of approximately 2cm thick and to desired length, always cutting with the grain.

Mix the salt, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, saltpetre, pepper and coriander together. Rub the seasoning mixture thoroughly into the strips of meat. Layer the meat, with the more bulky pieces at the bottom, in a glass or stainless steel container. Sprinkle a little vinegar over each layer, as you add them. Leave the meat in a cool place for 12 hours or more, depending on how salty you want the meat to be. (Some experimentation may be required to ascertain the correct length of time to let the meat 'marinade' for, according to your taste.)

Remove the meat from the marinade Mix the water and vinegar and dip the meat into this mixture. This makes the biltong shiny and dark.

Once this is complete, the biltong is ready to dry. Pat the pieces of meat dry and then hang them up on S-shaped hooks in your Personal Biltong Drier. Hang the meat in a cool, dry place with an oscillating fan blowing on it. Ensure that the air is dry, as too much moisture will cause the biltong to spoil. The biltong is ready when the outside is hard and the centre part of the biltong strip is still a little moist. Let the centre dry according to personal taste.

Makes about 21 lb

Visit http://www.africhef.com/South-African-Recipes.html for more South African Recipes.

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BILTONG - Recipe 3

Serves 30
5 pounds venison
4 ounces Salt
1 ounces Mixed Spices
1/4 tablespoon Chilli peppers
1 teaspoon Cracked Black Pepper, Optional
1 ounce Prague Powder No 2.
Using the dry-cure method, mix all the salts and spices.
Cut the meat into 1/2 -1 inch thin strips and lay a layer in a curing pan.
Sprinkle the salt mixture over the layer and then place another layer on top, repeating the process.
Continue to layer the meat until all the strips are laid out and salted.
Cure for 24 hours then remove from the cure and scrub all the salt off.
Dry in your Personal Biltong Drier.
(Adapted from http://www.scouting.org.za)

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BILTONG - Recipe 4

2KgBeef (Preferably Silverside/London Broil)
Rock Salt
Coarse Ground Black Pepper
Coarse Ground Coriander
Vinegar (preferably Apple-Cider vinegar)

First, be sure to sterilize all your hooks, knives, and working surfaces by washing well in hot water and soap.
Get some half-inch thick strips of beef (silverside - called London Broil in the US). Make sure it's cut with the grain. The pieces should be about 6 inches long. Liberally sprinkle rock-salt on each side of the pieces of meat and let them stand for an hour. The longer you let it stand the saltier it will become.
After the hour, scrape off all the excess salt with a knife (don't soak it in water!).
Then get some vinegar, preferably apple-cider vinegar, but any vinegar will do (the vinegar used will influence the final flavour slightly). Put some vinegar in a bowl and dip the strips of meat in the vinegar for a second or so, just so that the meat is covered in the vinegar. Hold the biltong up so that the excess vinegar drips off.
Then sprinkle ground pepper and ground coriander over the meat on all sides.
Once you have done this, the meat is ready to dry. A Biltong drier is an ideal way of drying biltong at home.

You'll know when the biltong is ready when it is quite hard, but still a bit moist inside. Of course, some people like it 'wet' and others like it 'dry'. It's all a matter of taste.
Most South Africans like it in-between; basically just a bit red inside.
If it has gone green, then the meat has spoiled (i.e. don't eat it).

Variations include the above recipe, but add flavours like Worcestershire sauce, BBQ sauce, Tabasco sauce, soy sauce, etc. Just brush these sauces on after applying the vinegar using a basting brush.

(Adapted from http://www.scouting.org.za)

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BILTONG - Recipe 5

What You need: (Scale as required)
1 kg meat - many different meats can be used. If you do not have access to ostrich or game etc. then try a cut of beef like eye of the round or flank.
some vinegar
less than a table spoon of course salt (or Kosher salt)
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of coriander (whole - get it at a bulk food store)
1/2 teaspoon pepper
string

You also need a good knife, fridge, electricity, scissors, a couple of bowls, some nails or hooks, a hammer and someone to make fun of you for trying to maintain your South African heritage. A couple other ingredients that I have never used but you may wish to use include bicarbonate of soda (apparently to prevent mould setting in) and saltpetre which acts as a preservative and gives the biltong a bright red colour.

Instructions:
Wash the meat.
Cut the meat at an angle against the grain into about one inch strips.
Sprinkle vinegar over the meat
Place the coriander in a bag and lightly crush the whole coriander so that the effect of the coriander will be greater.
Make the "biltong mix" by combining the course salt, brown sugar, coriander, black pepper.
Dip the meat into the "biltong mix" until all the mix is used up.
Place the meat in a tray for a few hours, or over night, in the fridge.
After a few hours dump any blood that has seeped out of the meat.
Dip the biltong quickly into a water/vinegar mixture to remove surface salt.
Hang the biltong to dry for about 4-7 days depending on humidity, temperature and taste. A Biltong drier is an ideal way of drying biltong at home at home.
Serves 1 hungry South African
Storage directions:
Ha! If you have any biltong left after a couple days then you are either a very lucky person or have added too much salt! Biltong can be frozen. It can be grated and used in such dishes as Biltong Frittata or Biltong and Cheese Quiche, which I personally thinks sounds gross!

(Adapted from www.markblumberg.com/biltong.html)

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BILTONG - Recipe 6

Meat Selection
As mentioned elsewhere, in the past farmers used a whole Beef or Venison carcass for Biltong, but today the beef buttock - consisting of the silverside, topside and thick flank is normally used. The finest biltong is made from the eye muscles running down both sides of the backbone and which are cut whole from a side of beef. The most tender (and most expensive) biltong is made from the fillet.
Bottom line: Use the best meat you can afford. The cheaper cuts of meat often contain an excess amount of sinew, collagen and binding tissue which will yield an often tough and ‘stringy’ product.

Method
The meat must firstly be cut into strips. A few things should be noted at this point:
Meat must be cut with the grain. This is because when you come to eat the final product you will cut the biltong across the grain (and tough tissue), in order to get the most tender pieces.
Meat will shrink by a large amount during the drying process. The more dry you like your biltong the more it will shrink, due to moisture loss from the strips of meat. You can roughly estimate that your end product, will yield approximately 40-50% of your starting weight.
In cool, dry climates, your initial strips of meat can be cut fairly thick, and of any length. In warm, moist climates, your initial strips of meat should be cut thinner. This is because the thicker the strip of meat, the longer it will take to dry out, and the more likely the meat is to spoil during the drying process.
Try to remove as much sinew and binding tissue as possible when you cut your strips of meat.
The strips of meat are then dipped into undiluted vinegar. Use red, white, or even apple cider vinegar. The vinegar ‘bath’ accomplishes a few things: It dissolves some of the sinew and binding tissue. It makes the meat a little more tender. It mellows the aroma and flavor of the meat, before and during the drying process. It causes the meat to have a dark and shiny appearance once it is dried. It opens up the pores of the raw meat, for the next step, which is to spice the meat. By doing so, the spices are able to penetrate deeper into the meat.

The following is a seasoning recipe, which we use, and is good for seasoning about 12 ½ kilograms of meat strips: (Scale as required)
560 g fine salt
125 ml brown sugar
25 ml bicarbonate of soda (helps to make the biltong tender)
10 ml saltpetre (optional)
12.5 ml ground black pepper
125 ml coarsely ground coriander
At this point you are ready to season your meat, and this is the step that typically distinguishes one type of biltong from another. Most people develop their own recipes for the seasoning they use on their biltong. These recipes are often passed down from generation to generation. As far as traditional biltong is concerned, you will typically see the following ingredients used in a seasoning: Salt, Pepper, Sugar, and Coarsely Ground Dry or Roasted Coriander

Coriander in my opinion is one of the seasoning which really identify with good biltong. Roasted Coriander in particular lends a wonderful flavor to your final product. In order to roast your coriander, place dried coriander seeds in a dry pan over medium heat and stir the seeds around the pan. The seeds will give off a strong aroma and will turn a golden brown color. At this point you should remove the seeds and coarsely crush them.

Some recipes call for ‘saltpeter’. This is a chemical similar to sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate and is used to cure the meat and help prevent mildew from occurring during the drying process in moist conditions. The ‘salpetre’ also gives the meat a nice rosy color once it has dried. Please note that health experts are now warning that such nitrates may significantly increase the risk of cancer in humans. So you might want to take this into consideration before using nitrates.

Of course you can be as creative as you like at this point and as an example, use seasonings such as dried chilies, granulated garlic and Worcestershire sauce.

Once you have seasoned your meat, we recommend placing it into a large ice chest overnight, and allowing it to absorb the flavors of the vinegar and seasoning, before you hang it up to dry.

Drying
There are many different ways of drying your biltong. In the old days, the South African farmers made little s-shaped hooks out of steel wire. These would be run through one end of the meat strips, and hooked around wires stretched along the beams of a house, or even the branches of a tree.
The ideal conditions for drying your biltong are in a breezy place, away from direct sunlight, but well-lighted, in order to prevent mildew. Make sure that you keep it away from ants, rats, insects, pets and greedy humans, who insist on ‘sampling’ the biltong before it’s time! Honest, good upstanding citizens have been known to decimate a supply of drying biltong.

The time it takes to dry biltong varies depending on how thick your meat slices are, what type of conditions you have in the place you are drying your biltong, and the method you chose to dry your biltong. A Biltong drier is an ideal way of drying biltong at home at home.
With practice, you will get to know when your biltong is dried to your taste. It is a matter of personal preference, how ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ you like your biltong. Typically it should be hard on the outside, but a little moist and red on the inside. With time, you will learn to squeeze the biltong between your fingers, and use the sponginess of the biltong as your guide. Alternatively you can hack into it with a knife to see exactly how moist it is !

(Adapted from http://www.3men.com/biltong.htm )

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BILTONG - Recipe 7

Anyone can make biltong [sun dried meat] from beef.
Choose meat from a young animal or the biltong will be very tough.
Cut strips with the grain of the meat. Thick strips will only dry well in warm dry weather, thin strips dry in almost any conditions.
Keep your cuts clean and straight!
Method: (Scale as required)
Prepare this mixture to preserve 5 kilograms of biltong.
Mix 100 g of coarse salt, 50 g of brown sugar, 6 g saltpetre, and 15 g of pepper. In damp, warm areas where mildew grows easily add 5 g of bicarbonate of soda to the mixture.
Spice the meat by adding some of the following spices to your mixture:
Ground coriander seed, aniseed, garlic salt and allspice.
Rub this mixture into the meat by hand.
Pack your salted strips into a plastic container overnight to allow moisture to draw from the meat.
Then dip each strip quickly into a boiling solution of water and brown vinegar [500 ml vinegar to a litre of water].
Hang your meat to dry in a well aired, cool, dry place, until ready to eat. A Biltong drier is an ideal way of drying biltong at home at home.
(Adapted from http://www.scouting.org.za)

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BILTONG - Recipe 8

BILTONG PRODUCTION
Biltong is a dried meat snack food, popular in southern Africa. It is made using the following
procedure:

1 Prepare a brine mixture according to the following recipe (for 2kg of fresh meat-brine
mixture i.e. 1 week’s production).
Salt 75g
Sugar 37g
Potassium nitrate 1g
Biltong spice mixture 20g
Mixed spice 10g
Black pepper 5g
Onion powder1.5kg
Garlic powder 1.5g
Ground ginger 1.5g
Mustard powder 1.5g
Potassium sorbate 1g

2 Select beef from hindquarter and cut into strands along the muscle fibres. Cut across the
muscle fibres to produce 2cm pieces. Discard all fat and connective tissue.
3 Wash the meat and weigh.
4 Rub the brine mixture into 2kg meat and leave it to stand for 12 hours.
5 Hang the meat in the sun under insect netting.
6 Dry until the meat reaches 25-50% of the original weight. A Biltong drier is an ideal way of drying biltong at home at home.
7 Package in polythene or preferably cellulose bags.

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