Hot weather must be good for something!
Recently I was watching a video on YouTube about food storage and one of the things they recommended was storing dehydrated veg, which I had not really thought about. I went online to see what was out there and most of it was not available to pick up, only online and most not produced in Aus, most seems to be produced overseas then just packed here. I was looking to experiment with the carrot, celery, onion mix often referred to as Mirepoix, but dehydrated, and see what I could make with it.
After some thought it did occur to me that I had a solar dehydrator and had some produce, that I could use, although I would use store bought for initial mucking around, and that’s what I did!
Carrot
After a bit of research, it turns out that carrot needs to be blanched, then placed directly into the dehydrator. I had a couple of large carrots, probably 200 to 300 grams worth, so I cut them up as uniformly as I could into 5-6mm cubes. From what I had read you could blanch them in boiling water for 2-3 minutes or steam blanch them for 3-4 minutes. I decided to steam blanch them for four minutes, then dump them into ice water to stop the blanching reaction so they didn’t over cook. Once cooled I dried them using a tea towel and spread them out on the drying tray. The amount of carrot cubes I had fitted easily on one tray, and I put them out into the dehydrator. It was going to be a mid thirty degree day and after 7 hours in the dehydrator, and rotating the tray once about half way through, they came out quite crispy!
Chopped
Steamed
Cooled
Spread out on the tray
Inserted!
Dehydrated!
Celery
The preparation of the celery was a bit different. I had read that they did not need to be blanched but in another source they said that if the celery was not blanched they would not have a nice green colour, but become an unappetising grey. I elected to blanch! I brought some water to the boil, cut off the top leaves and bottom white root end of the celery and then cut the stalks into roughly thirds. I blanched the stalks in boiling water for a minute or so, then removed them and gave them the ice water treatment until they were cool, then dried them off with a tea towel. Once dried, I cut the celery stalks into thin slices across the grain about 2 to 3mm thick and arranged them in a single layer on two dehydrator trays. I placed the two celery trays into the dehydrator, one above and one below the carrot tray. By the end of the day they were somewhat crispy in places but some bits were still floppy, so I placed them back in the dehydrator the next day for a few hours to crisp up, which they did after about 3 hours.
Chopped
Boiled
Sliced
Inserted
Dehydrated!
There seemed to be a lot more when I started!
Onion
It seems that onion does not need to be blanched at all, so it was just a case of chopping the onions into as uniform pieces as I could manage, 4mm to 5mm square roughly. I spread the onion pieces out on the tray in a single layer and placed them into the dehydrator in the late morning. By the end of the day some pieces were still a bit soft in places. The next day I processed another onion, placed it onto a dehydrator tray, and then put both trays back into the dehydrator. The first tray was OK by late morning, with the second tray needing to be in the dehydrator for the rest of the day. One thing that I was not expecting was the pleasant ‘cooked onion’ aroma throughout the back yard while the onions were in the dehydrator.
Chopped
Inserted
Dehydrated!
During the drying process, I inserted my compost thermometer into the side of the dehydrator to get a handle on the sort of temperatures the air inside was reaching. Early in the day it was getting up to 45°C to 50°C but in the hotter afternoons it had no problem reaching temperatures of 60°C plus.
Once the veggies were dehydrated I brought them inside and allowed them to cool and once cool I placed them in sealable glass jars (to keep out moisture) for storage and labelled them with the contents and date. They will be stored in a cool, dark place (the linen press) and should last up to a year, perhaps longer.
It is summer here, so I am expecting to be able to dehydrate more of the carrots, celery and onions for me to experiment with making soup and other dishes when the weather cools off, during No-Buy July maybe!
