Homemade dried meat

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A month ago, I went to my father's house to go out to dinner together, it's a new tradition that I introduced so that we can see each other a little more often since we live 60 kilometers away. away and that my weekends are often heavily loaded with kids' activities and outings with friends. So now, we go to the restaurant once every two months at least and we see each other from time to time between birthdays and parties.

Before going to the restaurant, my mother-in-law pulled out a piece of duck breast and put it in coarse salt. A month later, we went home for December 25 and we tasted the dried duck, a delight!
Amazing, I did not know it was so easy to get good dried meat!

I have already bought small pieces of grison meat from the store, it's good but it's super expensive and we do not know what's inside.

Preparation

Salting the meat

The first step is salting the meat.
Putting the meat in salt speeds up the drying of the meat.
We must take the meat out of its packaging and bury it in coarse salt simply in a glass dish au gratin for example.
As the days go by, the meat will reject most of its water, fold back on itself and harden.

Then simply pack the dish in cellophane and put it 24 hours in the refrigerator.

Desalt the meat

Once past 24 hours, take out your dish from the fridge.
Be careful not to forget your meat in the salt longer or it will be much too salty and inedible!
Leaving the meat dish, it will not be appetizing, in fact, it will be in a bath of salt and water it has expelled gradually.

Take it out of its nest of salt and rub it well under the clear water to get rid of all the salt. Do not hesitate to massage it a little to get a maximum of salt out.

Dry and spice the meat

Once the meat has been well washed and massaged, dry it well with sheets of absorbent paper. Squeeze it to let out as much water as possible and a little salt.
Leave it in the air for a few minutes to keep it dry.

Then, coat with pepper, indeed, pepper is an excellent antiseptic and hunt bacteria and microbes. A grandma's thing is when you have a cut on your finger for example, just soak it in pepper and the scar wound super fast and well.
You can also add other spices to your taste.
Finally, wrap your piece of dried and spiced meat in a clean dish towel with no laundry or fabric softener. Close the cloth tightly with a string so that the packaging is tight.

Then, the ideal is to put it in a cool place like a cellar or a garage. If you really do not have fresh parts in your house or apartment, you can put it in the refrigerator but it will not quite give the same result.
That's it, the hard part is done, you just need to wait about 1 month (a little less if you can not resist and a little more if you want it to be a little dryer) and leave the meat quiet.

Be careful of course to ensure that it is safe from attack by your cat for example or another pet.

Tasting

To pass the tasting, simply remove the fat (if it is a duck breast) and cut the meat into thin slices.
The meat can then be preserved as a dry sausage in a cool and dry place but generally, it is so good that we do not know how to keep it for a long time, in a few days everything is gone ;o)

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The first picture of the final result is not mine, in fact, I'm at the stage of waiting, I can show you in a month hoping that it works as well as with the breast of my mother-in-law. I will also try with a salmon pad because we can use this technique with all meats and fish so as salmon is my favorite fish, I will try it too. To be continued...