Fall is in full swing with football, hunting and fishing. One way to fuel your day is with some nutritious and delicious hamburger jerky. MAK owner Jeff Doan has developed an excellent hamburger jerky recipe that’s quite easy to make is ready in just a few hours. It’s this week’s “Tasty Tuesday” recipe:
Hamburger Jerky:
Ingredients:
1-Jerky gun (Jeff uses a Nesco Jumbo Jerky Maker)
5 pounds extra lean ground beef (93/7) (Optional: ground turkey or chicken meat)
2 cups soy sauce
2 cups white sugar
4 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 inch fresh ginger, gated
1 tsp. toasted sesame oil
½ tsp. chili powder
plastic wrap
bakery cooling rack
Preparation:
In a bowl mix together the soy sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger, chile powder and sesame oil. Place bowl in microwave and heat for 1 minute. Stir ingredients to mix. Combine the marinade with the meat, mixing thoroughly. Place hamburger in refrigerator for approximately 4 hours.
After refrigerating, divide hamburger into equal portions to form logs the same length as the jerky shooter. Wrap each log in plastic wrap. Return hamburger logs to refrigerator for up to 48 hours.
Remove hamburger from plastic wrap and feed into jerky shooter.
Follow manufacturer instructions to form raw jerky strips. For best results, lay strips single layer onto a baking rack, leaving space between each strip.
Cooking:
Start your MAK and leave on “Smoke”. Allow grill to come to temperature. Place baking racks inside main cooking chamber and smoke for 1.5-2 hours. Caution!: Because the hamburger meat is so lean, it can dry out quickly. So test jerky every 30 minutes until level of dryness is achieved. It is okay for the finished jerky to be a little “wet” when it is finally dried.
Place finished jerky into a resealable plastic bag and refrigerate. It’s good for up to 2 weeks in the fridge.
