Nikku

As tradition built it

Nikku (mipku / mikku / paniqtaq)

North Slope Borough, Iñupiat method: about 5 to 6 days to dry, depending on the weather. Dene dry meat given separately; its drying time is not stated in the sources found.

Ingredients

The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.

Inuit dried meat (mipku / mikku / paniqtaq)

• seal, walrus or caribou meat, skinned

Dene dry meat

• meat, cut into thin but comparatively large pieces
• as available rotten or punky spruce, for smoking

Method

Inuit dried meat

1. Catch seal, walrus or caribou meat, skin it, hang it, dry it, cut in strips.
2. Dry for about 5 to 6 days, depending on the weather.
3. It is ready to eat when the meat is dull black.

Dene dry meat

4. Cut the meat into thin but comparatively large pieces.
5. Dry by smoking over rotten or punky spruce.
6. Once dry, pound with the back of a hatchet against a flat rock to soften it.
7. Store, traditionally unseasoned, in cloth bags.

What a modern chef changes

Dehydrator-dried venison to a measured water activity

Rung 02

Method

1. Wild caribou is not available in Britain: substitute venison, or the thin UK trade in Finnish-farmed reindeer, clearly labelled as such rather than presented as equivalent.
2. Slice the venison against the grain into strips roughly half a centimetre thick, as the mipku method specifies.
3. Dry in a dehydrator at a low, even temperature.
4. Check doneness not by eye but with a cheap water-activity meter or food-safe hygrometer, targeting an aw of roughly 0.4 to 0.6, the number a peer-reviewed study actually measured in traditionally wind-dried Arctic meat.