I went to the store recently to buy some beef jerky as a snack. When I started looking at the labels, I found very quickly that they all had at least 3 carbs per one-ounce serving, some as much as 5. While this isn't much, I still don't like it. It's the sugar. They all had sugar.

So I decided to make my own and here's the recipe I came up with after searching the Web for ideas. The cumin in the marinade gives it a wonderful rich flavor that smells as good as it tastes. And you don't even need a dehydrator to make it.

The Worcestershire has a little bit of carbs in it, but I wound up discarding more than half of the marinade, so I would say that this recipe has considerably less than 1 gram of carbohydrate per serving.

Here's my recipe:

Marinade:
1 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup Worcestershire
1 cup water
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp granulated garlic
1 tsp granulated onions

Meat:
5 to 6 pounds lean beef
I used London broil. It was cheap ($2.66/lb at pay&save) and easy to cut all the fat off of.

Prepare the marinade so the onion and garlic have time to disolve.

To prepare the meat, trim all visible fat and cut the meat into 1/8 to 1/4 inch strips. It is important to get as much fat off as possible because that is the part that can go rancid on jerky. Also, it can help if you partially freeze the meat before cutting. I didn't freeze it and the meat was a little hard to handle so I had ends that I couldn't cut to the end of. So I cut them into stew meat. I wound up with about 5 pounds of strips.

The next step is optional, but I thought it was kind of cool. Take each strip and pound it with the nubby side of a meat mallet on both sides.

With a large resealable plastic bag handy, dip each strip in the marinade and put them in the bag. After you have dipped all the strips, pour the remaining marinade in the bag, seal and refrigerate for 30 minutes to 2 days. It just depends on when you are ready to do the drying.

To dry the jerky: Preheat the oven to warm. If you have an oven thermometer, check to make sure that the temperature is at least 160 but preferrably not over 200. You may want to line the bottom of the oven to catch the dripping (I have a self-cleaning oven, so I didn't worry about it). Also, as you put in the strips, they will drip on the door so you might want to put down some paper towels to catch that also.

Basically, you have to lay out the strips in your oven. This can be done in a number of ways. I put mine on cake racks that I then layed in the oven. It has been suggested that you can just lay them out on the oven racks. One thing I did as I put them on the racks was to "squeegee" them with my fingers first. This reduced the amount of drippage.

Close the oven door with a fork in the jam to keep it just barely open. This will allow for some airflow to take out the moisture. Leave them in the oven for 4 to 6 hours. Check them periodically to see how they are doing, removing the done ones as you go. If you dry them in the evening, you can heat them for 4 hours, then turn off the heat and leave them over night. In the morning, they will be fully dry and ready to store and eat.

The jerky will dry at different rates based on thickness and location in the oven. When they are ready they should feel totally dry and slightly pliable like very stiff leather. Try not to let them get to the brittle stage, but if you do, they'll still be good to eat.

I like to cut slightly thicker slices because I like my jerky a little bit chewy. Just make sure they are completely done.

Well that's it. You can, of course, make a smaller batch. But this makes about 1 1/4 pounds (20 servings). You can figure on 4 ounces per pound of meat. This is going to be great when I start hiking. Soon... soon.

;-Deb