Biltong and Droë Wors

 

 

Biltong and Droë Wors – Cut and dried the best local delicacies!

 

Can you picture the festive season without a good supply of biltong and droë wors? Neither can your customers! ButcherSA gives you the lowdown and droë wors guide on spices and recipe ideas, drying equipment, and cutters and slicers.

Biltong and droë wors (dried sausage) have been South African cured meat favourites for close on 400 years. In modern times, biltong and droë wors still make great travelling companions providing ever-ready sustenance, as they can last for long periods of time with very little care.

While biltong is renowned for being chewed as a snack, and, in mildly spiced form, even as a teething aid for babies, it has been enjoyed for many years shredded or powdered on a slice of freshly baked bread with a thick layer of butter.

And, in more recent times, it has evolved to become popular as a filling for omelettes and pancakes or crêpes; and as an interesting taste sensation in salads.

To capitalise on biltong’s versatility, butchers can provide small treats for sampling by customers to inspire them to try these at home.

South Africans take their biltong seriously, and the variety and quality of local biltong, as well as biltong spice recipes, are extensive. Throughout the ages many different marinades have been invented in which to place slices of beef or venison before hanging them out to dry to create “the ultimate biltong”.

Some like it slightly wet with lots of fat, while others prefer it medium or dry and lean, and some enjoy it so dry that pieces can be torn off by hand along the grain of the meat. Some have a preference for biltong spiced with lots of salt and coriander; others favour a more subtle smack of spices.

Most butchers use ready-mix ingredients for making, for example, boerewors, and biltong and droë wors are no different. In addition to spice manufacturers, most suppliers of biltong/wors driers and biltong cutters also supply spices.

But, if you want to please those ubiquitous consumers always on the lookout for something novel and adventurous, you can experiment with other appealing flavours.

While many different types of meat are used to produce biltong, ranging from beef to chicken and game to ostrich, we don’t see much other than beef biltong – naturally because it is so easily obtainable. Nevertheless, butchers should really put some effort into providing more game biltong.

In addition to whole biltong cut in slices or chunks at the butchery or sold to be cut at home, there are ever-popular biltong stokkies (little sticks) – the chilli-spiced version which is much liked – and biltong chips.

Let’s face it, the majority of mass-produced commercial biltong products sold at convenience stores, supermarkets and pubs taste vile. Butchers opting to provide in-house stokkies and chips will undoubtedly see sales going through the roof.

When it comes to the tools of the trade, various forms of biltong makers and cutters have been sold during the years throughout South African shops and on the Internet in response to the rapid expansion of the biltong industry.

Starting with biltong makers, there is a range of industrial biltong and wors drying cabinets with the capacity to dry anything from 25 kg of wet meat to up to 100 kg of wet meat. Local home biltong makers have become the rage around the world. They come in plastic, perspex, wooden or cardboard box form, and can dry between 2 kg and 4 kg of biltong and wors at a time, which is ready within three to five days depending on the thickness of the meat. Thin strips are ready within a day.

The biltong or wors making process is simple: The meat is cut, marinated and spiced according to taste and hung inside the machine on the hangers supplied. The (silent) machine is switched on and within a couple of days you have dried meat.

Locally-produced biltong machines can be used just as effectively at the coast in humid conditions as in very hot and dry or freezing climates. Other advantages include the fact that sopping wet meat can be hung straight from the marinade process, without the meat going mouldy, and the appliances being rust-free and robust.

Inexpensive home biltong makers are ideal for the smaller butcher with the added bonus that they can be offered for sale to customers – at a nice profit, of course. When selling biltong makers, remember to advise customers that, in the case of making droë wors, they should always use very lean beef with no more than 5% fat in the mix to avoid an end product that is overly greasy… and be sure to stock lean beef fitting the description!

Once your customers’ meat is dried they may find it difficult to cut or slice their biltong. Butchers will know that the simplest way to handle this task is by using a very sharp butcher’s knife or an electric biltong slicer. However, it is financially worthwhile to remember other stalwarts which can be sold to customers for personal use as well as gifts.

South Africans are well known for being innovative, so it comes as no surprise that a large variety of hand-driven biltong cutters and slicers with sharp high tensile steel blades were developed over the years. The wooden hand cutter is very popular with the general public, so put up for sale those made of woods such as Kiaat, American Walnut, Red Ivory and Yellow Wood.

Interesting biltong and dried wors titbits

When the Dutch settlers arrived in South Africa in the 17th century, they brought recipes for dried meat from Europe. Preparation involved applying vinegar, then rubbing the strips of meat with a mix of herbs, salts and spices. The wonderful, mildly spiced and salted, air dried meat known as biltong sustained the Voortrekkers during their challenging trek away from the British-ruled Cape Colony to the interior of South Africa.

Biltong’s popularity has spread to many other countries, notably the UK, Australia and New Zealand, which have large South African populations, and also to the United States.

How does biltong differ from jerky? Biltong and beef jerky are similar in that they are both spiced, dried meats, but differ in their typical ingredients, taste and production process.

Biltong differs from jerky in two distinct ways:

• The meat used in biltong can be much thicker than jerky meat, which is normally very thin.
• The vinegar and salt in biltong, together with the drying process, cures the meat as well as adding texture and flavour, while jerky is traditionally dried without vinegar.

In the past, farmers used a whole beef carcass for biltong and droë wors, which is related both in name and in nature to the Dutch droge worst.

Droë wors is unusual among dried meats in being dried quickly in warm, dry conditions, unlike traditional Italian cured salami, which are dried slowly in relatively cold and humid conditions.

Another difference is that droë wors is made from a normal frying/cooking sausage (boerewors), and therefore does not have the same content of curing agent that is found in a traditional cured sausage. A direct result of this is that droë wors should not be kept in moist conditions as mould can begin to form more easily than would happen with a cured sausage.

Suppliers of herbs and spices used in the preparation of Biltong and Droë Wors include Exim International, Crown national, Deli Spices and Golden Spices to name but a few.