History
Anyone familiar with biltong can tell you that no two batches will ever be exactly the same, just as recipes for this fantastic snack vary from person to person, the best ones closely guarded secrets passed down from generation to generation.
The ingredients in the cure,
the length of time in the cure, the dry, the meat quality are just some
of the variables determining the taste, texture and overall quality of
the biltong. Inferior ingredients generally equates to inferior biltong
which is why the quality and cut of the meat used is so important.
Having
made beef biltong from every part of the animal, I have settled on
topside as a cut that gives a great taste and consistency while also
providing a decent stick size.
Nitrites have been removed from the recipe – the miniscule amount needed is nevertheless undesirable in this day and age of carcinogenic awareness. No preservatives are used, a stick of biltong can last for ages if looked after and kept out of moisture. The packs have a shelf life of five months – again without using preservatives or adding de-oxygenator sachets. Canterbury Biltong was born out of a frustration at the quality of biltong on offer in Christchurch some years back.
I had been pining for it and was going to take my old dryer out of storage when I chanced upon sticks of biltong for sale at a supermarket in Christchurch . I handed over a twenty and tucked in to what turned out to be a stale, salty and generally extremely unsatisfying approximation of biltong as I knew, and expected it to be.
The dryer was dusted off, my old hunting recipes revisited and I made my first batch in New Zealand .
It
was good. Really good. I took some around to some Kiwi mates with a
couple of cold ones and some marinated ribs for a barbeque. Their
reaction and the reaction of the discerning bunch of epicurian drunks
at the Wild Food Festival that year convinced me to start what is now
Canterbury Biltong. Our biltong now sits in the same supermarket where
I had a bad biltong experience after months of enforced abstinence.
Our
biltong is in many supermarkets now, but no matter how many packs we
produce their will always be one constant in the biltong. It will
always be made with the best ingredients and without any shortcuts in
the curing or drying process. It will always taste great as a snack on
its own, with a beer or wine, or mixing it up on a platter with the
finest cheeses, dips or antipasti ingredients. As Liam aged seven, a
recent biltong convert remarked, when asked whether biltong was like
chocolate? “ No. It's way better,” he said.
High praise indeed.
Ask for Canterbury Biltong at the deli in your local supermarket or order directly online.