This was a recipe I came up with to have a cheap and “french” version of katsobushi in our quest to be able to have a fully functions restaurant working with only french products.
INGREDIENTS
- 5 pork hearts
- 1 litre water
- 50g salt
- 4 handfuls of hay
METHOD
- Take pork hearts and cut the top tough arterial bits off. Mix the water and salt and put the hearts into it for 24 hours in a fridge.
- The next day remove from the 5% brine solution and but on a rack into the oven. Have the oven turned off. Put 2 handfuls hay into an old beaten up pan and set fire to it and put it directly underneath the rack with the hearts on and close the oven door. Leave this to smoke for hour then repeat the process.
- Once the hearts have been smokes put them either in a dehydrator or keep them in the oven and set the temp to 70c overnight for 12 hours. Now depending on the size of the hearts you may need to do any time up to 24 hours. You are looking for a dryness that sill has a little squeeze to it. if it is too dry and almost petrified this is no good and you won’t be able to complete the last step.
- Now you can either use a katsobushi box or a kitchen slicer but the box works better and you want to try and get nice thin slices of the smoked meat. The hearts will keep for a relatively long time whole, especially vacuum sealed but once sliced with dry out very quickly.
