Pemmican Recipe

Pemmican Recipe

I’m a big fan of making my own foodie produce (as you can see from all the recipes for raw-vegan & veggie foods, cakes and such like over the years here on this blog).  So, when I moved over to eating mostly animals proteins and a small amount of seasonal fruits and veggies and I saw the crazies prices for keto and carnivore style bars I knew I would have to get to making my own again.  I thought, as meat was involved this would be complicated, time consuming and costly.  When in fact, compared to shop-bought items it’s none of the above.

Pemmican is an old fashioned way to preserve and store meat.  When meat was abundant it would have been dried and then meat fat added to it and maybe some sort of flavourings and / or some fruit or honey.  When made like this the meat would keep for many months (if not longer).

So, how do you make pemmican?

Ingredients

• 2kg of minced/ground beef
• 340g of tallow, lard, ghee or butter, melted (basically it’s a 6 : 1 ratio of meat to fat)
• 4 tsp. of sea salt or another good quality salt
• Optional…  100 – 200g of dried cranberries or another dried fruit &/or 4 tsp. raw honey

Directions

1. Lay beef out onto para-flex / reusable waxed sheets in your dehydrator (don’t overcrowd).  Set the dehydrator to the jerky setting or if you do not have that setting then to 165°F.
2. I set my dehydrator for 4hrs and then I take the meat off the sheets/trays (by flipping each tray upside down onto another one) and leave them to dry for another 4hrs directly on the mesh trays.
3. After 8hrs they should not have any moisture left on them (which would potentially make then go mouldy).
4. Throw them into a blender in batches and grind them up.
5. Once ground add them into a pan with your lightly melted fat, salt and anything extra you want to add and stir well.
6. Put some baking paper into a tray or shallow large bowl and pour in your mixture and pat down firmly.
7. Please in the fridge for a few hours and then remove and cut into slices or cubes.  Wrap in the baking paper and store in any kind of container on the shelf for months.

These are great to grab if you are on the go!