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Pemmican

Pemmican is a dried meat mixture of beef, suet or lard, and optionally dried Amilanchier fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Pemmican

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the beef into thin steaks and remove fat and membranes.

  2. Dry the steaks in a malt kiln over an oak fire until completely dry and friable.

  3. Grind the dried meat in a malt mill until it resembles finely grated meat.

Combine

  1. Mix the ground meat with nearly an equal weight of melted beef suet or lard.

  2. For enhanced flavor, add dried fruit of Amilanchier if desired.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the protein base that dries into a shelf-stable, chewy mass.
Beef suet or lard
Adds fat that carries flavor and keeps the dried meat moist and rich.

The step that matters

Drying the steaks until completely friable. If the meat is not dried fully, residual moisture can lead to spoilage and prevents the meat from grinding into a crumbly texture. Thorough drying removes water so the product keeps and blends evenly with the fat.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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