I have not made this recipe yet, but because of a guest post I’m doing for Ann Marie’s CHEESESLAVE blog about real food emergency preparedness (I will link to that post when it comes out), I want to try it soon. So I am posting and will update this recipe and let you know how it turns out. This recipe is also a good mini lesson in how to render fat. The technique would work with either beef fat (tallow or suet) or pork fat (lard).
For good information and pictures in the meantime, please see this entry in Mark’s Daily Apple. What a great post! The only difference that I can see between his recipe and Sally Fallon’s is that Sally added dried cranberries and maple syrup. I think this will make the pemmican more palatable, but we will see!
I am also thinking of adding 1 teaspoon of salt per pound of beef PRIOR to dehydrating the beef, does anyone have any advice on this? Would love to hear from people in the comments that have made pemmican.
Have a great weekend and be sure to share in the comments about any pemmican stories or experiences that you have had.
Pemmican
Rating: ?? fork (key)
Difficulty:
?? not sure yet
Page in NT: 525
Ingredients:
3 pounds lean beef, such as brisket or bottom round
1 pound beef suet or tallow (you will want to end up with 3/4 cup of liquid tallow) [TNC: has anyone tried coconut oil?]
1/2 cup dried cranberries or cherries (optional)
1/4 cup grade B maple syrup (optional)
Preparation:
Slice beef into thin strips, spread on oiled racks placed on a cookie sheet and bake several hours in a 150 degree oven until well dried. You may also use a dehydrator. Meanwhile, cut suet or tallow into small pieces and place in a pan. Melt over medium-high heat and allow to boil until any pieces of skin, meat or gristle have become crisp. Pour the hot fat through a strainer into a glass measuring cup – you should have about 3/4 cup of rendered fat.
Cut dried beef into pieces and process in batches in the food processor, several minutes per batch, until the beef is reduced to a course powder. In a bowl, mix powdered beef, warm fat, optional cranberries and optional maple syrup. Press into a quart-sized, wide-mouth mason jar and cover tightly. Pemmican may be stored at room temperature. Eat pemmican as is, or fry it up in a pan.
There are affiliate links in this post. I only include these links for products and services that I use myself and work hard to research and try out everything before publishing to my readers. If you have any comments about the links in any post please bring them to my attention at kim@theNourishingCook.com.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I was recently reading about pemmican in Barry Groves’ book “Trick and Treat”. He documents that the native Americans initially made pemmican with ONLY meat and fat, and it was a very palatable and successful (and nutrient-dense) portable food. The “nutrition experts” among the colonists decided that it needed some carbs and added dried berries. This is documented to have greatly reduced its shelf-life (the fat-and-meat-only pemmican will last practically forever) and made it fairly unpalatable.
I haven’t tried either, but as a person who needs to be low-carb, I’m very curious to try the meat-and-fat-only version. OOOhhh, and I have a side of beef to pick up this weekend from a local rancher…
I have tried the meat and fat only version of Pemmican in the bucket from US Wellness, and I really love it. And the dogs get excited in a way that is beyond their normal “food! food!” excitement when I get it out (and theses are raw fed hounds).
The serving size in the photo looks large – I find that pemmican is very satisfying. It does indeed hold up well in the fridge, and I travel with it at room temperature. I always eat it cold, or at room temperature – I never thought to heat it.
I would use the dehydrator method… that way you can preserve the enzymes. I set mine at 105 degrees. I think it would be easier to salt AFTER dehydrating and shredding. Wonder if you could use heart? It is a very lean meat (once you trim) and pretty tasty… BTW, the amount of fat seems low. I thought it was more like 50/50.
I’ve made pemmican using coconut oil and antelope as my meat. The flavor was quite good but the coconut oil doesn’t stay solid enough to keep the pemmican at room temperature. If I was going to take it along for hiking it would have to be in some sort of cooler which defeated my purpose for the pemmican. I did use maple syrup and raisins in it too. It was a little on the sweet side. And I agree about the serving size. I put mine in muffin tins and those are still quite large. It is very filling. This post
http://realfoodforlessmoney.blogspot.com/2010/03/tuesday-twister-march-30.html
shows a picture of the pemmican I made (scroll down). I will try pemmican again when I can get a source for tallow or lard.
I’ll look forward to seeing Ann Marie’s post on Emergency Preparedness. That is something that I struggle with in regards to real food.
If you’re worried about spoilage in this stuff, what do you think about using honey for the sweetooths out there? It doesn’t go bad by itself… who knows when it’s mixed with pemmican.
Good stuff all around. Time to go bag me a deer.
it keeps just as well with honey .. honey is also a well kept preservative secret .. don’t use too much .. as it will get sweeter over time ! like beef candy LOL !
thanks Mike great idea! how much have you used before, say per cup of unsweetened mixed pemmican?
I have been buying Tanka Bars for a few years now and they have become the standard that I will use for making my own when I get my next batch of beef or moose. They contain: buffalo, cranberries, water, salt and less than 2% of flavorings (yeah, that’s a good reason to make my own, isn’t it?), red pepper, sea salt, granulated garlic, granulated onion and lactic acid starter culture. I think that rather than make jerky first and then grind it up to make pemmican I’m going to use ground meat, mix all the extras in and shape it into thick strips to dehydrate like jerky, in one step. Has anyone else done this? In Mary Bell’s dehydrating and jerky books she gives recipes for jerky made from ground meat. Seems the simplest way.