Pemmican Recipe
Pemmican is made from dried and pulverized meat combined with melted fat and sometimes Saskatoon berries, a small red berry similar to a cranberry.
Pemmican is filling and nutritious. Lightweight and long-lasting, it was a staple for voyageurs during their long journeys. Bison (or buffalo) was the most common meat for use in pemmican. Other meats were used too, such as elk and even fish.
Planning a hiking or wilderness camping trip? Make sure you stock up on pemmican!
- Equipment required
- Ingredients
- Method
Equipment required
- Food dehydrator
- Sharp chef's knife
- Cooking kettle or Dutch oven (preferably cast iron)
- Metal ladle
- Large clean tarp - heavy painter's plastic will do
- Anvil, or stone with a hard and flat surface that you can use as an anvil (e.g. granite)
- Clean piece of heavy canvas, for covering anvil
- Safety goggles
- Meat mallet
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Ingredients
- Beef or bison suet (kidney fat), about the same weight as the meat
- Bison meat, very lean, from a tender cut and containing no sinews or tough stringy parts. Trim off any visible fat. If you substitute with other game, moose, caribou or deer work well. Never use the meat of bear, wolf or any other carnivore.
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Method
- Partially freeze the meat to make thin slicing easier, or ask your butcher to slice it for you. Slice meat across the grain in about ¼ inch slices, or to the thickness the dehydrator manufacturer recommends.
- Follow manufacturer's instructions to dehydrate meat.
- Note: You can dry meat in your regular oven, but you must maintain the temperature at 60ºC (140ºF). Any cooler and you risk food poisoning. While this may be an authentic voyageur experience, it is best to avoid.
A convection oven works best. To monitor temperature, use a removable oven thermometer. If temperature goes over 65ºC (150ºF), meat will begin to cook rather than dry.
Sufficiently dried meat will be brittle, drier than most commercial jerky.
Alternate method: If you want to use a commercial jerky, choose one containing no seasonings at all. You might find it too chewy to pound out properly. To make jerky from ground meat, use the leanest possible. It is better to get a piece of lean tender meat and have it ground than to try pounding greasy, chewy meat.
- While you wait for the meat to dry, you can render the fat. Chop your suet into dice, or ask the butcher to grind the fat. Kidney fat is best if you have a choice. For help obtaining the best fat, explain to the butcher what you are making.
- Place the chopped up fat in the Dutch oven with enough water to cover the bottom by about ½cm (¼ inch). Heat on medium, stirring occasionally. Rendering takes time, and you must supervise the process constantly. Never leave fat without supervision, even for a minute. If you must leave the room, take the pot off the heat.
Alternate method: Fill pot with water. Using a ladle, skim the rendered fat from the top of the water as it rises.
- Once the fat or grease has melted out of the suet, let the pot stand awhile until cooler, but fat is still liquid. Carefully pour the melted fat into a clean container. Ladle it out if you are more comfortable. If you like, you can strain the fat through a piece of muslin or a paper filter. Set the rendered fat aside. Clean out the pot, and then put the fat back in the pot to be warmed up when you finish the pemmican.
Alternate ingredient: You can purchase rendered beef fat from certain butchers. It comes in a brick like lard or shortening.
- Pound the dried meat. Start by placing the tarpaulin on the ground. Put the anvil in the centre. Cover the anvil with the canvas. Wearing eye protection and using the mallet, pound the pieces of dried meat on the covered anvil. If you use a stone, take care not to chip or break it. This can be hard work - you need to beat the meat until it is almost a powder.
A food processor will not produce very good results, and you risk wasting a lot of meat. As a poor substitute, some Asian stores sell dry, shredded pork. Buy the darker type.
- Once you have pounded the meat and rendered the fat, place the meat in a buffalo hide, hair side out. Alternatively, you can use a baking or roasting pan.
- Measure out equal weights of meat and fat. Lay the meat in the pan, keeping it fluffy. If you would like to add dried berries, you can use Saskatoons, a traditional favourite. There are now U-Pick and commercial Saskatoon berry operations in some areas. Check on the Internet or at specialty shops.
Alternate: Use dried cranberries, available at most grocers.
- Melt the fat until quite hot and pour over the meat. Let mixture sit.
Alternate: Warm the fat until soft, and stir the meat into the fat. Pack mixture into the dish. This method is safer when working with younger children. Let the pemmican set, it will keep best in the fridge or freezer.
Pemmican can be eaten as is, or used to make Rubbaboo.
