Title: Dehydrating Vegetables
Categories: Vegetable Dehydrator Info
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Drying vegetables at home requires a little extra effort for a good-quality product that will be stable in storage, rehydrate well and be tasty and tender when cooked. Some vegetables do not rehydrate satisfactorily and, if you choose to preserve them, are better canned or frozen. Frozen asparagus, cauliflower and broccoli are far superior to dried. Some vegetables, such as carrots and potatoes, are available fresh at reasonable prices all year. I don't recommend drying these unless you do if for convenience or for backpacking.

The fresher the vegetable when it is processed and dried, the better it will taste when rehydrated and cooked. Many dried vegetables that have been rehydrated and cooked are tougher than fresh or frozen ones. This can be caused by the quality of the fresh vegetable when it is processed, the pretreatment before drying, the method used to dry or the storage time.

FRESHNESS -- Tenderness may be influenced by LACK OF FRESHNESS of the vegetable when it was dried. Green beans, for example, may be kept in the refrigerator for one or two days after picking, then cooked and eaten. They will taste quite fresh. If those same beans are refrigerated two or three days before they are dried, they will be much less tender when rehydrated and cooked.

* Harvest only fresh and mature vegetables.

* Don't let vegetables stand at room temperature any longer than is absolutely necessary.

* If you cannot process vegetables immediately after picking, refrigerate them.

* Do not wash vegetables until just before you are ready to process them. Then dry them as soon as possible. Water speeds up deterioration and loss of nutrients.

PRETREATMENT -- Another factor that influences tenderness of rehydrated vegetables is PRETREATMENT BEFORE DRYING. Most vegetables are much more fibrous than fruits. Pretreating by steam or water blanching, softens the tissues. This lets water escape more readily during drying and lets it re-enter cells more easily during rehydration.

DRYING TIME and TEMPERATURE -- Vegetables are much lower in sugar and acid than fruits, and so must be dried under more controlled conditions to prevent spoilage during the drying process. DRYING TIME AND TEMPERATURE are crucial to the tenderness of dried vegetables. The longer the drying time, the less tender they will be. Use uniformly cut pieces. Drying time is proportional to the thickness squared. If a 1/4-inch dice dried in 2 hours, a 1/2-inch dice will take 8 hours, or 4 times as long.

STORAGE TIME -- Even when properly packaged, most vegetables will not keep in good condition as long as fruits, unless stored in the refrigerator or freezer where they will last for years. Otherwise, use dried vegetables within 6 months. Properly packaged vegetables will not spoil, but will gradually deteriorate in flavor and nutrition. ** 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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