Kitchen Essential

Hamburgers

Equal quantities of good quality beef and pork should be minced and bound with egg yolk and basic seasoning to form cakes. These should be placed on a wire rack, with a dripping tin underneath, in a smoke oven pre-heated to 200 - 225^° F. There should be plenty of dense smoke as the hamburgers will only be in the oven for about 30 minutes. They can either be left in the same position for the whole process, or can be turned halfway through.

Cured beef

Good quality lean beef should be used. Topside or leg steak is ideal, being solid-textured but flavoursome. The beef should be cured in sweet pickle at 35^°F. For pieces about 2 lb cure for 3 - 5 days. Cuts of 7 - 8 lb will require 10 - 14 days in the pickle. Before pickling it is essential that the beef should have been dead for a minimum of 7 days, otherwise the fibres will not absorb the pickle properly. After curing, the meat should be washed in cold water and left to dry under refrigeration for 24 hours. Rub well with basic seasoning.

The beef will now require cold smoking for a period of 12 - 24 hours at a temperature of from 75 - 85^° F, then the process should be completed in the smoke oven, pre-heated and maintained at 200^° F, certainly no higher than 225^° F. Close-textured beef such as topside and leg steak requires slow cooking for the best results. Cooking times will vary from 2 to 4 hours depending on the size of the cut.

Beef processed as described has a shelf life under ordinary refrigeration of at least a month and can easily be deep frozen for much longer periods. If this is done, the beef should first be cut up into suitably sized pieces, so that it can later be used as required.

Biltong

Real biltong, as produced in South Africa, consists of narrow strips of meat, salted and sun dried. The flesh of game animals is used, also ostrich, and the most highly esteemed and expensive is springbok biltong. Britain does not have a climate which is consistently dry enough and sunny enough to allow for the production of biltong by traditional methods, but it is possible to produce an excellent smoked substitute. Good cuts of beef or venison should be used, and I imagine goat’s flesh would be ideal, being closely related to the antelope family. I have tried the flank and rib flesh of fallow deer, but, though the flavour was good, the flesh was too fibrous to swallow.

All fat should be trimmed off, as although the finished product will keep for a long time without refrigeration, fat will turn rancid. The meat should be cut into strips 1 - 11/2 in. thick. The strips of meat are now cured in sweet pickle brine for 5 - 7 days. The meat is rinsed in fresh water and dried under refrigeration for 24 hours. The strips of meat are next cut into very thin slices with a very sharp knife. This will be easier if the meat is placed in a deep freeze until partly frozen — this will make it much firmer during slicing. Cured meat seasoning should be applied to both sides of the slices as an additional flavouring only, as the period the meat has remained in the brine will have been enough to cure it.

The meat slices can have pieces of string passed through holes made in their ends, for hanging in the smoker, or can be laid flat on racks. Cold smoking takes place at a temperature between 50° F and 85°F — actually the lower the better. According to smoke temperature and atmospheric humidity, smoking time can vary between 24 hours and 4 days. When a slice will snap in two when it is bent, the meat is ready.

There is no need to freeze the finished product, which will keep almost indefinitely when kept in a container with perforated sides or lid to allow for the free circulation of air.

Smoked rabbit pie

For this rather unusual dish you will require:

• Shortcrust pastry
• 1 full-sized rabbit
• 12 oz belly pork
• 4 eggs
• 8 oz mushrooms
• 2 medium-sized onions

Ideally, the rabbit should have been dead just 3 days, and have hung at normal room temperature or been kept in a refrigerator in hot weather. After skinning, the rabbit should be well washed and allowed to soak in salt water for 3 hours. Then it should be pricked with a fork in the thickest parts of the flesh. The carcase, along with the belly pork, should be placed in 90% brine.

Rabbit and belly pork should be cold smoked for 24 hours at 75 - 90° F and should not be pre-dried before smoking commences. The rabbit is then cut into joints and placed in a casserole along with the sliced belly pork and the peeled and sliced onions. The mushrooms are now added, the contents of the casserole just covered with water, and salt and pepper sprinkled over the surface. The casserole is placed in the oven for 11/2 - 3 hours, according to the age of the rabbit, at a temperature of 350° F. Alternatively, the meat, mushrooms and onions can be cooked in a pressure cooker until tender. The meat should be allowed to cool just enough so that the flesh can be removed from the bones. The rabbit meat, belly pork, mushrooms and onions are now placed in a pie dish with the smoked eggs, cut into pieces. The dish is covered with a sheet of shortcrust pastry in which a few holes are made to allow steam to escape. The pie is baked at 425^°F for 20 minutes. It is equally good eaten hot or cold.

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