SC - Adaptation from Apicius for jerking meat

[Stefan li Rous]

Seumas posted the recipe from Apicius for pickling meat:

> >From the 1936 Vehling translation of Apicius, Book I, Chapter VII
> [Vehling 11]:
> 
> "To keep cooked sides of pork or beef or tenderloins place them in a
> pickle of mustard, vinegar, salt and honey, covering meat entirely. And
> when ready to use, you'll be surprised."
> 
> If I recall correctly (Mmm...notes have disappeared) I started with
> 750ml of red wine vinegar, 250ml of honey, 4 Tablespoons each of ground
> mustard and sea salt. This itself tasted mostly of vinegar naturally, so
> I doubled the amount of mustard and honey. I might have added more sea
> salt, but this used up the last in the kitchen at that time. The sliced
> meat marinated in the fridge for a full day, then 24+ hours in a 150 F
> oven. Came out very dry (brittle) and slightly tangy of the vinegar. I
> would prefer it more spicy/savoury, so later attempts will increase the
> mustard and salt again. I might go so far as to make a very thin paste
> of mustard and salt using the vinegar and honey. I'm also considering
> grinding up the salt with the mustard for an additional dredge of the
> meat before packing and marinating. Personally, I would like to try some
> with black pepper, perhaps ginger. I like more pungent flavours. 

Thanks for posting this.

But this isn't a recipe for drying meat, it is a pickling recipe. Which
I would interpret to mean to store the meat in the pickle juice, not
to marinate and then store dry. Or is that what you mean by an adaptation?

I may have to try this as pickled meat sometime. It does sound tasty
though as just a marinade. But would this pickled dried meat last
any longer/better than just dried meat?

You said you would have used more seasalt except you ran out of sea salt
at that point. Is there any particular reason you didn't just add some
table salt at that point?

- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****