03/09/2026
How we make our Pastirma/Pasturma/Bastirma.
You know what’s incredible when you’re trying to honour other cultures in your cooking? It’s the history or spelling of words over thousands of years, especially in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, thousands of years of history, spelling and adaptions but also the amalgamation of different countries, cultures and religions and although over the years there’s been times of unrest in the Middle East, somehow food has stayed and been honoured in its history. 🥰🫶
Food is so powerful.
Our Pastirma is made with Camel, an introduced species to Australia from Afghanistan, originally brought here to assist in transporting goods up and down the centre of Australia before the introduction of trains, then once we had no use for them we let them go and now they cause us havoc in the western parts of our country.
We use Summer Land Camels meat, it’s trimmed back generally by a good looking young chap with great calves, salted for 2 days, washed and soaked for 1 hour, then it’s pressed for a few days. At the end of the first week it will be rubbed with a spice mix (fenugreek, garlic, paprika) then wrapped in cloth and left for a few weeks until ready. Simply served with some pickles.
Before we opened Humble Stacey had never worked with Camel, when living in Dubai the meat is not easily accessible to eat but more used for its milk, over the years she’s made numerous batches of Pastirma and most of you have loved it! 😂🥰🫶
Come see the girls tonight and this weekend 🫶
