INGREDIENTS

Meat

• beef (size is not important, tenderloin is best, but just an even piece of boneless meat will be good.) — 2 kg.
• salt (coarse salt for salting meat is taken at the rate of 50-70 g per kilogram of meat) — 120 g.

Spicy paste for dressing

• fenugreek (ground fenugreek seeds are needed - aka chaman, aka ucho suneli, aka hilbe (in Israel)) — 5 tsp.
• sweet paprika (you need dry paprika in powder) — 3 tsp.
• garlic powder (you need dry garlic, in powder) — 2 tsp.
• hot red pepper (in powder) — 1 tsp.
• salt (not iodized) — 1 tsp.

METHOD

1. Place the tenderloin, peeled from the film, in a glass or enamel bowl, sprinkle with coarse salt in a ratio of 60—70 per kilogram of meat. Cover the dishes with meat with a film, refrigerate for three days. Twice a day, turn the meat over to the other side, for even salting. After three days, for three hours, transfer the meat to another bowl with water at room temperature for soaking. Thus, you get rid of excess salt in the surface layer of meat, and even out its concentration.
2. Wrap the meat with gauze to protect it from flies and other insects, hang the meat for two or three days to dry in a dry and protected from direct sunlight place.
3. Pour the mixture of spices with boiling water, and mix thoroughly until the consistency of mayonnaise, allowing to steam and swell. Brush the meat with the prepared paste in two stages. For the first time, coat the basturma with paste as it turns out, and then, when the paste dries, apply a second layer, thoroughly smoothing over the entire surface.
4. On this we complete the process of preparing basturma, and hang it to dry, as before, covered with gauze, in a dry and protected from sunlight place. Drying time depends on temperature and humidity, and takes 1—3 weeks.