Howard wants me to let everyone out there know that I’m the one calling this Biltong — NOT HIM.
We may have followed — (to a T) — the hundreds years old recipe dictated to him by a Boer grandmother during his time in South Africa in the late 80′s, but because I subjected the marinated beef to 90 minutes of smoke in our smoker/dehydrator it was NO LONGER AUTHENTIC.
Now that the necessary disclaimer is out of the way, I assume it’s safe to continue.
Created from a piece of beef flank (rescued from the expiring bin in the butcher’s dept.), trimmed slightly, sliced across the grain, marinated, racked, smoked and then dehydrated the rest of the way.
Howard is very, very good at drying meat. See the little nodules of fat? I’d never eat raw fat, but I’d wrestle my Grandma to the ground for the last piece of this stuff.
Get you mind out the gutter — NOW.
We ARE, of course, talking about bacon lardons. Very good bacon, cut into small strips about 3/8″ wide, then blanched or fried.
Howard insisted that I show you these particular lardons, which he fried the other night as a component of our dinner using smoked tuna, spaghettini, shallots, cream and parmesan. Very yummy. So good that I didn’t pause to take a picture of the finished dish. So you’re stuck graced with these, entitled “Series: Lardons“ Think of them as an LPT, or Lardon Photo Tutorial:
