Title: How To Dehydrate Vegetables Part 1
Categories: Vegetable Dehydrator Info
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HOW TO BEGIN -- Sort and select the highest quality fresh tender vegetables. Some vegetables such as green beans should be young and tender to dry best, others such as carrots should be more mature. If vegetables are immature, they tend to have weak or poor color and flavor. Overly mature vegetables are inclined to be tough, woody or fibrous. Drying characteristics of vegetables are indicated in the charts "Vegetables A-Z".

WASHING -- Water left on vegetables increases deterioration, so wash them quickly just before processing. Use cold water because it helps preserve freshness. Many vitamins and minerals dissolve in water and will be lost by soaking. Soil may contain illness - causing bacteria that are difficult to kill. If vegetables are covered with garden dirt, wash them under cool running water so the dirt doesn't resettle on the food. Wash carefully to avoid bruising.

PREPARATION -- Most vegetables need to be peeled, trimmed, cored, cut, sliced or shredded. Peeling some vegetables is optional but be aware that peelings tend to be tougher when dried. Remove any fibrous or woody portion and core when necessary. Cut away decayed or spoiled spots as they may contain enough bacteria to contaminate an entire batch of dried vegetables!

Prepare only as many vegetables as you can dry at one time. Keep pieces a uniform size so they will dry at the same rate.

PRETREATMENT -- Pretreating most vegetables before drying will decrease the chances of spoilage and increase quality and storage life. Vegetables deteriorate much more rapidly than fruits during storage because of continued ENZYME ACTION. Enzymes are chemicals in all fruits and vegetables which cause them to ripen. The higher sugar content and acidity of fruits counteracts this enzyme action. In vegetables, enzymes will continue to react, resulting in toughness and loss of flavor and color.

Enzymes are destroyed by heat so almost all vegetables should be blanched ~- heated in boiling water or steam -- before drying. Blanching is appropriate for vegetables because you will probably use the dried vegetable as a cooked vegetable. In WATER BLANCHING, the vegetables are placed in a wire basket and submerged in boiling water. In STEAM BLANCHING the vegetables are suspended above the boiling water in a colander or wire basket and heated only by the steam. STEAM BLANCHING IS PREFERRED BECAUSE LESS WATER-SOLUBLE VITAMINS AND MINERALS ARE LOST. Blanching sets the color and shortens the drying and rehydration time by relaxing the tissue walls so moisture can escape or re-enter more rapidly. It also kills most organisms that cause spoilage. Blanched vegetables take less time to cook because they are already partially cooked. ** Continued in Part 2 ** ** 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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