ABSTRACT
Pastirma, a popular dry-cured beef product made from whole muscle, can be considered an intermediate-moisture food (Gök et al. 2008). Several whole meat dried products such as ham, bacon, corned beef, Bündner“eisch, and pastrami are produced all over the world. Pastirma is generally produced from whole muscles obtained from certain parts of cow and water buffalo carcasses (Aktaş and Gürses 2005). In order to produce pastirma, all the exterior fat and connective tissue are removed from the meat, and then the processes of curing, drying, pressing, and coating the resultant meat with cemen paste are applied (Aksu and Kaya 2002a). Although pastirma is de…ned as a cured and dried meat product, partial fermentation takes place during the production step, thanks to natural microbial “ora (Katsaras et al. 1996; Aksu and Kaya 2001a).
