Just Jerky : The Complete Guide to Making It by Mary Bell
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Book Reviews of Just Jerky : The Complete Guide to Making It
Book Review: Excellent resource for dehydrating food.
Summary: 5 Stars
Great recipes, small size to keep handy, excellent book.
2 thumbs up, very glad we bought it when we bought our dehydrator.
Enjoy!
Book Review: Good easy reading
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a good book for starters. This was a gift along with the Nesco dehydrator and it has good recipes in it for the starter. Very easy and informative.Book Review: Excellent Recipes
Summary: 5 Stars
This Book says it all, a MUST for anyone that whats to make dried fruits, meats, vegetables or spices.Book Review: The ultimate guide for making your own jerky!
Summary: 4 Stars
Compared to general-use cookbooks, those with a specific focus, such as this one, are directed at a narrower audience. They tend to be tougher to write because the consumer who picks it up expects more than a mere compilation of recipes. Mary Bell delivers! Her first chapter covers the where's, why's and how's of jerky, even including its background history. She continues by going into more specific topics of preparation and storing the chewy morsels, covering a variety of methods and equipment which may be employed to achieve a variety of results.
What follows are about 100 pages of recipes. I was amazed to see how many different kinds of foods may be preserved this way. Sure, I've been making beef jerky for years, usually with a teriyaki marinade...and for variety, I'd add garlic this time, maybe curry powder the next. Who would have thought to write a jerky cookbook? I'm glad Mary did, though.
Don't get me wrong. If I'd given it a little thought, I would have come up with the idea of substituting pork or poultry for the beef. But never would I have considered using ground meat...or believe it or not, vegetarian jerky.
A few years ago, my husband and I were driving up the California coast, enjoying the scenery and the quaintness of the region, not to mention the clear blue waters of the Pacific near the Oregon border. Every few miles, we would see signs advertising little country stores that sold salmon jerky. We were intrigued enough to stop and sample some and wound up buying a bag to munch on while we drove or to eat at roadside tables in the forests of Northern California. Well, that had been our intention. It was so good, we polished off the bag fairly quickly. Unfortunately, we saw no more of these businesses the rest of our trip.
I've been looking for a recipe for this delicious snack ever since. I've done web searches, posted requests in a number of food newsgroups, asked friends, and talked about it to everyone I knew, but I came up with no way to duplicate it. Finally, I got Mary's book and there it was. (Can you tell how excited I am?) Not only salmon, but she also covers trout, cod, tuna, catfish, halibut, sole and other small panfish.
Vegetarian jerky? Sure...and you'll be amazed at what she's come up with. We're not just talking about vegetables, either.
And to finish it all off, here's a grabber for ya...jerky desserts!
No pictures and very few illustrations, but you don't miss them in this book. Matter of fact, I imagine all the jerky would start looking alike after awhile.
The format is great: easy to read, with the ingredients listed in boldface slightly larger than the instructions, and each recipe includes a little sidebar that enhances its corresponding dish, either informationally or via interesting anecdotes.
Very nicely done and highly recommended.
Book Review: If you are interested in Jerky this is your book
Summary: 4 Stars
A great book dedicated to Jerky. Covers all aspects of Jerky including history and development. Lots of academic stuff but not too dry. There are some good tips on jerky making though she leaves the details of a specific time and method details to the user guide of the device used (smoker/oven/dehydrator etc). Thats one area I would have liked more specific facts and figures. She does cover minimum time to make the jerky safe though. Jerkey reciepies are many and varied, pushing the envelop and occasionally going through what you might consider "jerky" which to her is any flavored dried meat (and beyond). She has receipes for both strip and ground meat jerkeys and fish as well.
The section on vegitarian jerky is truly unique, never seen those before. Will have to give one a try sometime. Most are based on Texurted Vegatable Protien (TVP).
The final section of the book really is not about Jerky per say but adding jerky flavor to things you may not have considered (like Ice Cream). They are simple reciepes for a variety of things with a bit of powdered jerkey thrown in for flavor.
Its a good book and sticks to the subject but I would like to have seen more specifics. Perhaps more sources for jerky supplies (she gives one) or reviews of Jerky making equipment/supplies. I know that part would go out of date with time but I would have been nice.
If nothing else this is certianly an original work. Buy this book and save your self batches and batches of ruined meat trying to learn what she has already done. Its a good place to start for your own experiments.