Kitchen appliances and utensils: cutting board, knife, food container with a lid.
Ingredients
chicken breasts (fillet) | 1-1.5 kg |
coarse salt | 0.5-0.7 kg |
black pepper | 2 tsp |
Red pepper | 0.5 tsp |
turmeric | 1 pinch |
Provencal herbs | 0.5 tsp |
coriander | 1-2 pinch |
white pepper | 1 pinch |
Step cooking
- To prepare basturma we take chicken breasts, clean them of the film, cartilage, leave large pieces.
- Pour salt into the food container so that the bottom is covered. We put pieces of meat there, sprinkling them generously with salt. For this product, coarse salt is needed, fine salt is not suitable for salting. When we fill the salt, we make sure that all meat is covered with it. We especially look at the side walls of the container, with a knife we push unreached sections of meat so that salt gets there. We lay in layers, sprinkling each with salt well, we do not regret this cheap product. It should draw excess moisture out of the meat, then it will become quite dense. This, of course, is not real basturma, but it also goes away with a bang.
- When all the flesh is sprinkled with salt, tightly laid in layers, close the container tightly with a lid, send to the refrigerator for a day (at least 12 hours).
- After a day, we take out the chicken from the refrigerator, it became dense, well saturated with salt. We rinse each piece under running cold water, dry it with disposable towels. The remaining salt can now be discarded; we no longer need it. I want to say that if the meat has been in salt for more than a day, soak it for one hour in cold water. So excess salt will go away. Leave the chicken for 15 minutes to dry, and in the meantime we ourselves will prepare spices for sprinkling.
- To do this, we need red and black peppers in ground form, turmeric, coriander, white ground pepper and some Provence herbs. The main ingredients for basturma are red and black peppers, the rest of the seasonings can be used based on your own preferences. In a separate container, pour two teaspoons of black pepper, half a teaspoon of hot red pepper, an incomplete teaspoon of Provence herbs, one pinch of coriander, turmeric and white pepper. Mix all these spices and get ready to smear the chicken. You can add a glass of cognac here and make a paste, but using dry spices is faster and easier.
- To coat the meat, we take a plastic bag, put the chicken pieces there in turn, pouring each seasoning mixture, close the bag, holding it by hand, mix the contents for a while. As a result, we get well-peeled pieces of chicken meat. Now it should be stored at room temperature for three to five days. You can wrap basturma with gauze and leave it in the room.
After five days, cut the basturma into plates, it will be a great addition to foam beer.
Now take a few tips.
- Use all the spices and seasonings to your liking: if you really like hot, add red pepper, if you prefer herbal supplements, increase the number of provence herbs, etc.
- Basturma can be suspended, but if you do not do this, then turn it over every day so that it dries evenly.
- At a very high temperature, the basturma dries quickly, so after a couple of days of drying, it is advisable to send the product in the refrigerator for ripening.
Theoretically, basturma is ready to eat after it has been taken from salt, but with seasonings and dried it is much tastier.
Such a product will be very useful when meeting friends over a glass of beer.
Video recipe
The host very simply and thoroughly tells how to cook chicken basturma at home, accompanying the story by showing the cooking process.