Using jerky in recipes. I'm thinking of buying some jerky to have

[alfredo]

a supply of meat around when my wife needs a protein fix. Have you ever used jerky in soups and stews?

[The empressof all]

1. I think it might be too salty

I'm wondering though how it would be cooked in a crock pot with unsalted broth. The liquid might leach the salt out of the meat. I don't know. I know that you can reconstitute salted cod but jerky might just be too dried out and "cooked" to ever be palatable in a stew.

[alfredo]

2. The salt will leach out into the broth. I would chop it up so if it

was tough, it wouldn't be difficult to eat.

[IA_Seth]

3. I would think..

That you would have to shred it, or at least somehow get to the more 'fibrous' interior portion to allow it so soak up some of the broth/liquid. The outside is typically almost glazed and wouldn't be to easily soaked/marinated.

I'd prob try to soak it overnight before using it as well... if I tried using it at all!

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[alfredo]

4. I thought about soaking it and using the jerky and broth. What about

putting it in a food processor?

[Kali]

5. carne seca - yum

that reconstitutes pretty dang good. Homemade jerky sans all the exotic "flavors" including smoke, would be fine - you could even give it a quick rinse if it seemed to salty but I would be more concerned with the chemicals in commercial jerky.

[alfredo]

6. We have some good local jerky. You can see the muscle fibers.

[Warpy]

7. Mexicans use a partialy dried meat called machaca

in all sorts of meat based dishes. Originally a preservation technique, machaca is now made in the home kitchen as an end in itself, a way of changing the flavor and texture of meat into something quite different.

There is no place I know of that sells premade machaca, not even here in NM.

Were I to try to use jerky, I'd soak it in boiling water to desalinate it first, then shred it so it would be a little less like chewing on old bicycle tires in the final product.

There's no reason it can't work.

[alfredo]

8. Here's instructions for Mexican Jerky

http://www.recipezaar.com/50957

Making jerky in a weber charcoal

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Alt/alt.food.barbecue/2006-08/msg00051.html