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Traditional method

Charque

Charqui · Carne-seca · Brazilian dried salted beef

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Beef salted heavily and dried into a strongly preserved ingredient that is desalted before it is cooked in stews; a Brazilian form of salt-dried meat that keeps far longer than the lightly salted carne-de-sol.

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Brazilian charque, heavily salted and dried beef with a firm dark red-brown surface and pale fat seams, on a plain cream plate.

What it is

Charque is beef salted and dried until it is hard. The dried meat is a reserve, not a meal in itself: it is desalted and then cooked, most often in stews. The product is related to other salt-dried whole-muscle meats, such as charqui from the Andes, but the sources treat each regional form on its own terms.

Sources for this section

Charque and carne-de-sol

Carne-de-sol is a lightly salted, partly dried beef with a short keeping life. Charque is the more thoroughly preserved product. The sources do not treat the two as interchangeable, and the difference in salting and drying is what separates them.

Sources for this section

How salting and drying preserve

Heavy salting draws water out of the beef and reduces the water available for spoilage. Drying removes more water, so the stored meat stays hard and stable until it is needed. Desalting before cooking restores a food that can be eaten.

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Limits of the record

The sources give no salt concentrations, drying times or storage limits. Desalting time is not recorded, and the historical method is not a validated home curing process.

Sources for this section

History

Charque is beef that has been substantially salted and dried. It is a strongly preserved product that is desalted before it is used in stews. The sources distinguish it from carne-de-sol, which is less salted and dried and has much more limited keeping quality.

Ingredients

Scaling: source batch only

BeefCut into pieces or strips for salting and drying.
Amount not stated
SaltApplied heavily.
Amount not stated

Method

Risks and precautions · Standard risk
Salt-dried beef without validated limits

Salt-dried meat depends on salt and moisture levels the sources do not quantify for charque.

Hazard source

Use a tested salt and drying process; do not treat this historical description as a validated method.

Control source

The sources record historical practice only. They are not a tested home method.

  1. Salt the beef heavily.
  2. Dry the salted beef.
  3. Before cooking, desalt the dried beef.
  4. Add the desalted beef to stews.

Places

Brazil

Documented preparation · Country evidence

The record names Brazil; the sources do not establish a single origin for charque.

See Brazilon the mapLocation source 1 →

Related

Made from

  • Beef

    Beef is the meat of domestic cattle, Bos taurus and Bos indicus, sold as steaks, roasts, ground meat and cured products, and used in broths, salami and koji seasonings.

Equipment

  • Charque drying rails (varales)

    Open wooden rails in a sunny, ventilated yard, on which salted beef sheets for charque are hung in the air and sun. The rails are a Latin American premises arrangement that the FAO describes in its meat-processing guidelines.

Read more

More from Brazil

  • Carne-de-sol

    Beef given limited salt and partial surface drying, a short-keeping Brazilian meat that is much less durable than fully dried charque and is treated as a cold-chain product.

  • Moquém

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  • Newfoundland dried salt cod

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Related in the family

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Early modern

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  • Arabushi (smoke-dried bonito)

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Sources