Biltong

As I've stated on a number of occasions, Simple Foodies is about simple-to-make food. And although today's recipe does require some "special equipment", it isn't by any means difficult.
Biltong is, essentially, dried meat and some people might call it jerky. There are differences, none that I want to go into today.
Biltong originated in South Africa when people needed to preserve their meat over long periods without the benefits of cooling. So the process of biltong making is basically taking raw meat and dehydrating it.
So let's start. The best meat to use is Topside or Silverside and in Argentina I use Falda sin hueso also called Tapa de Asado.
Step one is to clean any excess fat off the meat and then to cut the meat into strips (about 5-7cm wide), with the grain..
Next the meat has to be soaked in white vinegar for a few hours. This gets rid of bacteria and helps with the curing process. Drain the liquid from your container and add the seasoning.
For people in South Africa, this means going to a supermarket and buying biltong spice. For those of us who are not that lucky, the spice can be made as follows:
two cups of coriander seeds, one cup of course salt, half a cup of fine salt, half a cup of black peppercorns, two tablespoons of cayenne pepper and one tablespoon of ground cloves. Place these ingredients in a coffee grinder and break up slightly. When everything is slightly more broken up, add half a cup of brown sugar. And there you have your spice to marinade your biltong.
Liberally add the spice to the meat and toss about until it is spread evenly and leave to marinade for a few more hours. Up until this point, I have kept rack with the Simple Foodies philosophy. Now for the slightly tricky part. As I said earlier, the meat has to be dehydrated and that implies drying it out. The South African way is to have a biltong box which you can buy commercially. Essentially is is four pieces of perspex with a base as well as a lid, which has a 60w bulb in it and a computer fan. Yes, that's all it is. The number of variations on making your own one are almost endless (do a Google search for "making a biltong box"). The meat is then hung up in this box, the light and the fan are switched on and within three to four days (depending on the humidity where you live), your biltong will be done. Obviously not everyone has a biltong box. If you have an oven that has a fan in it, hand the meat off the oven racks, turn the oven on to about 50 degrees Celcius (about 122 degrees Fahrenheit) with the door slightly open for about four hours.
WARNING: this is a very addictive food and once you start eating it, there's no going back!
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