Today is the long-awaited Friday and I am revealing the promised bombshell of intrigue.

I want to warn you right away - the meat is not subjected to any heat treatment to such an extent as to kill any possible microorganisms in it. Therefore, if you are afraid of salmonella, worms, bovine tapeworm and other “friends”, it is better to just read the information below and not try any experiments with your health.
Meat should be purchased from trusted suppliers (I would not risk using “my own” meat and meat from markets for this recipe - there is no guarantee of complete absence of life, I prefer the butcher shop closest to me, where I personally know all the sellers and they can honestly answer how many hours ago this lamb shit on the lawn).

Before the actual drying, a salting process will take place - for this you MUST use glass or ceramic dishes to prevent oxidation of the food (this is actually harmful to health and greatly affects the taste for the worse).

You need to use SEA salt, no coarse rock salt - it will be too salty. Sea salt is less soluble and has the ability to penetrate into foods exactly as much as needed.

I will show you all my results at once, and you can choose the one that you like the most.

At first I made friends with a group of birds. Duck breasts, for your information, are sold in some supermarkets - frozen and for a lot of money. Someone experimented with these, but I didn’t dare - fresh meat cannot be compared with frozen!
For "experiments" I had chicken and turkey fillet- turkey meat is denser and red; chicken - soft and tender, slightly yellow.
For 3 chicken breasts I needed 2 turkey breasts (the total weight of meat is just over a kilogram):

2-3 tablespoons black pepper (coarsely chopped)
2-3 tablespoons thyme and rosemary mixture
0.5 cups cognac
0.5 glasses of port wine

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. The liquid should evenly moisten the salt and make it loose. Of course, it is better to take good alcohol, and if finding cognac is generally not a problem, then it is categorically not recommended to take the publicly available port wine “777”! Search, you will find a decent and tasty one.

We take a ceramic or glass form, put half of the salt mixture on the bottom, place poultry fillets on top of it, loosely together, and cover with the remaining mixture, so that the meat does not stick out anywhere.
If liquid detachment occurs (as in the photo), it’s not scary, after a while everything will return to normal.
Set aside.

Now for the pork (let’s do this - everything here is at your own peril and risk! I’m not afraid of dry-cured pork).
For a kilogram of pork tenderloin you need:
1 kilogram of coarse sea salt
8 tablespoons black pepper (coarsely chopped)
2 tablespoons red pepper (crushed) or finely chopped a couple of fresh chili peppers (without seeds)
2 tablespoons cognac
2 tablespoons dried sage

The pork tenderloin must be cleaned of all veins, membranes and other fibers.
Mix pickling ingredients. Please note that for chicken and turkey we used a full glass of liquid, but for pork we only need 2 tablespoons of cognac.

We also put half of the mixture in the mold, a piece of pork on it, and sprinkle the remaining salt on top.
Set aside.

That's it, just salt and coarsely ground black pepper, no aromatic herbs or cognac.
Well, everything is standard: We clean the meat from the films, put half the mixture into the mold, meat on top, half the mixture on top.

All preparatory dances with a tambourine are finished! Then everything is absolutely the same for any type of meat.
Cover containers with meat covered with salt tightly with cling film and place in the refrigerator for 12 hours.

After 12 hours, we remove the pieces of meat from the salt burial (the flavored salt can be used several more times) and rinse thoroughly under cold running water to wash away all the adhering crystals and spices. Dry very thoroughly with a napkin - the meat should not be wet.

Here are some closer photos for comparison:
Chicken and turkey- the chicken became more yellow, and the turkey turned pink. But the most important thing is that the elasticity inherent in fresh meat has disappeared, the fibers seem to have hardened, you see, even from the edge of the plate the ends of the fillet do not hang, but cheerfully stick out parallel to the table))

Pork, on the contrary, has slightly lost color, but in general has not changed much

But the bright red beef changed its color to a juicy burgundy and became somehow grainy, like dry-cured sausage.

Wrap the pieces of meat in a thin breathable cloth, gauze or a paper napkin that is not very thick, but not sticky, and place it in the refrigerator for another 12 hours.
It’s great if the refrigerator is equipped with a No Frost system - the refrigerator has special fans that ensure air circulation inside the chamber. Unprotected by bags, films and original packaging, the products in such refrigerators seem to dry out (because of this, some consumers criticize such refrigerators and honestly defrost their usual refrigerators with a drip system). But this “drying” is to our advantage this time! That’s why the fabric/napkin with which we wrapped the pieces of meat must be breathable - meat salted for 12 hours will now dry out for the same amount of time (dry out slowly, releasing moisture).
In general, it would be ideal to hang a piece of meat in the refrigerator compartment so that there is air access from all sides, but you can simply place your valuable packages on the refrigerator shelf:

After this time, we unfold and admire:

Chicken and turkey You can eat now! Plane into thin translucent slices and enjoy, but pork and beef we have to dry for another whole week)) It will also be completely non-lethal for the bird to dry for some more time, if you wish, but it is worth considering that every day this already hardened former tender meat will harden even more.

Now I will show control sections after 12 hours of drying: