dehydrators
Submitted: Tuesday, Nov 11, 2003 at 22:39
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nola
I've just bought a K-Tel Dehydrator 2nd hand and would like some
information on using it as it didn't have an instruction book with it. I've been told that they are handy for decreasing the room needed to store food on camping trips. Cheers - Nola.
Reply By: Jim - Wednesday, Nov 12, 2003 at 20:45
Wednesday, Nov 12, 2003 at 20:45
Hi nola,
I work in a fruit&veg retailer and my boss has recently purchased one of these himself. Although we are still experimenting with it, we have found that bananas derhydrate
well. With bananas, what we do is cut them down the middle ala banana split style and then half the splits again at 90 degrees to the initial cut... Essentially you quarter them. Why didn't I say that in the first place? Oh
well I think you get the drift. You then peel the skin and lay the the flesh on the dehydrator trays. Bananas slices should take about 18 hours at about 130 degrees farenhiet, but I think you just have to keep an eye on them and find the amount of dehydration that suits your likings. If you over
cook them they are too hard too eat and not too enjoyable. When done just right, the taste and texture is a bit like hard caramel. I like them!
Next is tomatoes ala sun dried style. With these we cut them in half and prepare a marinade of olive oil, dried oregano (which you can dry yourself if you want), salt and pepper. Mix the tomato halves in the marinade and then there ready to go in the machine. When done store them in olive oil. Tomatoes don't take as long as bananas but I suggest you experiment with the time and temp settings until you get the result you like.
Other things that we are going to dry are apple slices, Pineapple slices, stone fruit especially apricots, mushrooms (which can be rehydrated), mango slices (without the skin) Pawpaw pieces etc etc... Really the imagination is the limit here!
Why not make your own beef jerky and muesli!!
It is important to use only ripe fruit to dehydrate especially tomatoes and bananas because unripe fruit does not produce the same flavours.
I think most of the foods you dehydrate would turn out to be snack foods for activities away from
camp sites like hiking and fishing etc etc...
Have fun!
With regards, Jim.
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