The purpose of the present research was to investigate the effect of desalting and cooking on moisture, ash, lipid and protein contents, besides the fatty acid profile of charqui and jerked beef, meat products very popular at Brazil. Moisture retentions of 76% and 65%, ash retentions of 10% and 11%, protein retentions of 71% and 87% and lipid retentions of 60% and 65%, were observed respectively for charqui and jerked beef. The fatty acid profile of charqui and jerked beef had little influence of the processing conditions studied.
charqui; jerked beef; cooking; fatty acid; chemical composition