Venison Bresaola...

A first for us at Redborne, as part of our new shop we decided to look at new suppliers and ended up swapping some pork for some Venison. Most of the venison was used to make game sausage but the loins were filleted and I decided to have a go at making Bresaola, an air dried meat traditionally made from beef.

Here is part 1:

We started by trimming all of the silvery sinews and making sure that we had only the leanest meat left over...

Then we needed the cure mix. In order to successfully cure an air dried meat it takes something a little special, a salt known as sodium nitrite. Commercially this is called 'Prague Powder Number 2' and is the curing agent along with salt and sugar.

To the curing agents spices and aromatics can be added and that comes down to taste. My curing mix was as follows:

100g Sea Salt
100g dark Brown Sugar
5g Prague Powder
Good helping of crushed black pepper
2 sprigs of rosemary

The cure is added to the meat, wrapped in a bag and left for a week, the process is repeated and only after this point is the meat ready to air dry...