Using dehydrated food in cooking

[ElsieD]

There are several topics dedicated to dehydrating food but none that I could find that talked about what you do with it so I thought I'd start one.  I recently bought a dehydrator and while I have been busy dehydrating stuff, I have made exactly 2 things - a tomato and red bell pepper quiche and a squash risotto topped with Japanese U10 scallops, pictured below.  I have various amounts of red, orange and yellow bell peppers (never green, perish the thought!) 1 apple, cranberries, peaches,squash, tomatoes, and there might be something else, I've forgotten.  I only dehydrated 2 delicata squash but have 6 more which I plan to dehydrate.  So that's the straight-up stuff.  I also plan on turning some of it into powders which I'll use to enhance the flavours of, for example, soup.  I don't have a lot of ideas yet as I'm still learning about it but I am keen to learn more, dehydrate more, and use it more.

 

For those of you who dehydrate food, what are you/have you dehydrated and how do you plan to do so?  I'm all ears, Oops!  I mean eyes!

, 

[lemniscate]

I mainly dehydrate mushrooms (when there's a really good sale), lemon slices (I have a backyard tree) and pomegranates (also in backyard).  

Lemon slices are for tea steeping or infusing cocktails.

Pomegranates are for anardana and eating like raisins or on top of salads.

Mushrooms for adding to soups/stew/gravies.

 

One or two large batches of beef jerky a year.

 

 

That's about it so far, and the use is very seasonal based on backyard fruit.

 

I guess I don't really "cook" with my dehydrates much.

 

 

[donk79]

My last dehydration project came from a surplus of peppers.  I dehydrated a bunch of sweet peppers (including bells) along with a few hot peppers.  I dehydrated them until definitively crisp then ran them through the food processor.  My inspiration was paprika.  This is definitely not paprika.  It does make a mighty fine addition to scrambled eggs though!

[liuzhou]

The only things I dry myself are mushrooms, chilli peppers, cherry tomatoes and tangerine peel. That said I use a lot of dried ingredients, but store or market bought. Some rarer mushrooms I can't get fresh, seaweeds, various fish, shrimp, squid, scallops, longgan and more. Chinese stores carry vast selections of dried foods for cooking or as snacks (especially fruits). I extremely rarely use dried herbs, though.

 

 

 

Edited October 22 by liuzhou (log)

[Bhukhhad]

Dear ElsieD,

 

What a lovely topic. May I write about it, even if I don't have a dehydrator? I dehydrate though. But in the oven. I must share my experience. I have to look up photos from my computer and will add them later. This is a recipe for AAM PAPAD
 

One year I had bought mangoes in their season and ripened them diligently in the pantry. Mangoes (Haden or Kent are the favorites in our home) are expensive, but they are the KING & QUEEN of fruit for us. So have them we must! 
At the same time, we received two more boxes as gifts from some friends who went to Los Angeles and brought back those from the Indian stores there. Far less expensive than the Bay Area San Francisco. So those were the best gifts in the season!. Well, we had too many. I remembered the Aam Papad from Bombay and my childhood. So I decided to experiment. 

 

AAM PAPAD

Mango Juice

Sugar to taste

A pinch of salt

A pinch of cayenne pepper powder

 

Spread in a ceramic or glass baking tray. The mango juice may not be more than 1/4 inch in height on the baking tray. Bake in a 300F oven and keep watching every hour. I did not have any idea how long it would take. And I would stop baking if I had to stop watching. Then the baking tray would be cooled and transferred to the fridge overnight. I know it was a pretty stupid thing to do. But in India, aam papad are made by drying under the sun. And they are brought indoors every night. I just wanted the mango pulp to not spoil. It did keep drying though even in the fridge. 

 

Well the result of my experiment at the end of three days of trying was still a moist leather, but it did roll like a leather. Just not a very good leather. If I had a dehydrator, I may have made aam papad!! I found a royalty Free photo on the internet. I don't know if it is allowed to be posted here or not. So I am not posting it. Please look for AAM PAPAD. There were many photos there. 

 

Totally yummy though. I need a dehydrator. Let's see when I get one. Thought I would share my experiment. 

 

Bhukkhad which means always hungry. 

 

 

[ElsieD]

@Bhukhhad Thank you for this.  I did look it up and from what I read, it is essentially a fruit leather.  The recipes I saw say to use mango puree (not juice) and once the first thin layer has dried, you add another layer layer of puree and repeat a few times.  Does that sound about right?  I can buy frozen mango puree here, I love mangos.

[Bhukhhad]

Dear ElsieD, 

The recipe I saw in my relatives homes, was not layered. It was essentially keeping the mango puree (yes puree. I should have mentioned that my reference to mango juice was just the entire pulp from one mango, with the seed removed and all the juice squeezed out. That would make it a puree, not "juice" as in what we would drink in a glass). So the method was just to dry the mango puree in sunshine every day all day, and bring it indoors at night, so that insects would not fall into it. And the tray would be covered with muslin during the day so that dust and particles would not settle into it. 
Fruit leather sounds right. Though I don't know how that is made here. But go ahead and try it for yourself in the dehydrator. It is a method for preserving fruit longer. And you might enjoy AAM PAPAD in the result! How great is that. 

 

[gfweb]

anyone ever dehydrate a pawpaw?

[FauxPas]

1 hour ago, gfweb said:

anyone ever dehydrate a pawpaw?

 

I don't know why I was curious about this because I don't have pawpaws and I don't think they are usually grown in this part of the world but I did some searching and found some stuff that suggested it was a bad idea to dehydrate them. Have you seen or heard of this? 

 

Seems very odd, but see here, for an example:

 

https://growingfruit.org/t/using-pawpaws/2307/31

 

Here is the quote from I believe the Director of Pawpaw program at Kentucky State University from their Facebook page called “KSU Pawpaw”:

Pawpaw fruit do not dry well, for some reason I have had reports from numerous people saying dried pawpaw fruit didn’t agree with them and made them a little sick to their stomachs. We aren’t sure why, if the fatty acids get rancid, or if there is something that gets concentrated when you dry that isn’t agreeable to the stomach, but because of that it isn’t recommended. Freezing pawpaw fruit is the best way to store it. Remove the skin and seeds, puree the pulp and store in a freezer bag.

[gfweb]

54 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

 

I don't know why I was curious about this because I don't have pawpaws and I don't think they are usually grown in this part of the world but I did some searching and found some stuff that suggested it was a bad idea to dehydrate them. Have you seen or heard of this? 

 

Seems very odd, but see here, for an example:

 

https://growingfruit.org/t/using-pawpaws/2307/31

 

Here is the quote from I believe the Director of Pawpaw program at Kentucky State University from their Facebook page called “KSU Pawpaw”:

Pawpaw fruit do not dry well, for some reason I have had reports from numerous people saying dried pawpaw fruit didn’t agree with them and made them a little sick to their stomachs. We aren’t sure why, if the fatty acids get rancid, or if there is something that gets concentrated when you dry that isn’t agreeable to the stomach, but because of that it isn’t recommended. Freezing pawpaw fruit is the best way to store it. Remove the skin and seeds, puree the pulp and store in a freezer bag.

 

Not a lot of pectin in a pawpaw. I can imagine texture problems, rancidity is a surprise.

 

I need to look into this more.

Thanks.

[FauxPas]

13 hours ago, gfweb said:

Not a lot of pectin in a pawpaw. I can imagine texture problems, rancidity is a surprise.

 

I need to look into this more.

Thanks.

 

@gfron1 used pawpaws quite a bit, I think. I wonder if he ever dried them?