Asian Style Beef Jerky

Who doesn’t love beef jerky? I mean come on, this is one delicious snack. However, it is often difficult to find really good jerky. I grew up on jerky for the most part. My dad used to use a dehydrator on it, then he got into smoking it, using, well of course, his smoker. I have to admit though, as geeky as it sounds, the greatest jerky of all time has got to be the jerky chew cans. Regardless, I have had my share of jerky, and have been experimenting with it lately. My latest was an Asian inspired jerky, smoked.

Ingredients:

• 2 flank steaks cut against the grain, 1/4 inch strips
• 4 tbsp of soy sauce
• 2 tbsp dry sherry cooking wine
• 2 tbsp ginger powder
• 2 tbsp garlic powder
• cracked black pepper, how you want it

Mix the wet and dry ingredients together. To a large ziplock bag, add the cut meat, and add in the mixture. Let marinate for at least 12 hours.

Remove the meat from the bag, and lay on wire rack to let air dry for about 30 minutes. This will allow any of wet mixture to either get off. Next, if you are smoking, which I did, place the meat in your smoker, and cover the lid and walk away. Check the meat frequently as you are dealing with thin strips. You will also want to moderate your heat, keeping it pretty low. After about 4-6 hours you will have yourself some really interesting and killer flavors, not only from the marinade, but with the added smoke. I used apple chips for my smoke source.

I’m curious, if you are making jerky, how are you doing it? Smoking? Dehydrating? Oven, low and slow? Oh yeah, and if you are looking for any kind of jerky out there, check out http://www.bestbeefjerky.org and get all of the latest reviews. It is a great resource.