Title: How To Use Dried Vegetables
Categories: Dehydrator Vegetable Info
Yield: 1 Textfile

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REHYDRATION OR RECONSTITUTION

Home-dried vegetables rehydrate slower than fruits because they have lost more water.

Dried vegetables are usually more tender if they have been soaked long enough to reabsorb most of their lost water. If they are placed directly into a boiling soup or stew and are cooked without given time to plump, they will be tough.

Use only as much water as necessary to cover the vegetables. Boiling water shortens rehydration time, but cold water may be used. Rehydration water contains some dissolved nutrients, so use it in soups, stews or sauces.

Rehydrating may take 15 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the vegetable, thickness of pieces and temperature of water used. Do not let vegetables stand in water more than 2 hours without refrigerating them. Holding them at room temperature gives bacteria a chance to grow -- just as it would in fresh or thawed frozen vegetables.

COOKING

After rehydration, vegetables are ready to be cooked. Simmered vegetables are more tender than those cooked over high heat. In a fully rehydrated vegetable, the cooking time is about the same or slightly longer than it would be for the same frozen vegetable. If the vegetable is used in a baked food such as Scrumptious Carrot Cake (see other recipe), it may be reconstituted, drained and used in the recipe without further cooking.

Because most dried vegetables do not have the same eye appeal or color as fresh or frozen, it helps to dress them up a bit. You can combine them with fresh or frozen vegetables, use them in soups, stews, casseroles, serve them in a sauce or give them extra flavor and color with seasonings. Add salt or seasonings after rather than before or at the beginning of cooking. ** How To Dry Foods by Deanna DeLong HPBooks, California 1992 ISBN = 1-55788-050-6

Scanned and formatted for you by The WEE Scot -- paul macGregor

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