Dried foods – not pretty, but pretty tasty

By Barb Randall

The Lake Oswego Review, Aug 27, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Drying, or dehydrating, tomatoes is a great way to preserve them for later use. Drying intensifies the flavors of foods.

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Dried foods won’t win any beauty contests with their wrinkly and shriveled appearance. But don’t let that keep you from eating them. They deliver a concentrated smack of flavor!

How satisfying it will be to dig into pasta studded with dried tomato and sprinkled with your homegrown and dried basil and oregano this winter. Drying simply boosts the flavors of the foods.

In our pursuit to regain Grandmother’s Kitchen Wisdom we learn today about drying foods for later use. You will find that it is a much less exact process than either canning or freezing.

I don’t know that my grandmothers utilized the method much, probably because it would have been less efficient than canning or freezing in the Willamette Valley. Today, we can dry, or dehydrate, food without being dependant on the sun, making it a much more feasible process.

The goal with dehydration is to remove about 80 to 95 percent of the food’s moisture. Removing the moisture inactivates the growth of bacteria and microorganisms, and causes enzymes to become inactive, which halts the ripening process.

To remove the moisture you need to ensure these conditions:

n Constant heat. A general rule for the proper temperature is 125 for vegetables, 135 for fruits and 145 for meats.

You want the heat high enough to force the moisture out, but not so high that it cooks the food. Foods dried at too high a temperature will trap moisture in the interior of the food, causing case hardening.

If the food is dried at too low a temperature, or with too high humidity, it will dry too slowly. Both conditions can cause the food to spoil.

n Dry air. Dry air absorbs moisture from the food. The higher the humidity, the longer it takes for food to dry because of the additional moisture in the air.

n Air circulation. Circulating air carries away moisture absorbed by dry air. This keeps the humidity level constant in the drying chamber.

n Uniform size. Pieces the same size and thickness will contain about the same amount of moisture and will dry in the same amount of time.

You can dry food in a solar powered or an electric dehydrator, by using a conventional or convection oven or drying in the sun. All the methods work well when you follow basic food drying procedures, use high quality fresh food and practice good sanitation for food preparation.

Solar and electric food dryers are the most reliable dryers. If you plan to dry a lot of food, you might want to consider purchasing one. If you have a convection oven, test it first before going to the expense of buying or building either a solar or electric dryer.

The solar unit works by solar radiation passing through the clear glass top of a wooden dehydrator box, and then the heat trapped by the box dries the food.

The dehydrator also may have an absorber plate inside, which indirectly heats your food and creates a convection current of air that enters a vent at the bottom of the dryer. The cool, fresh air that enters the vent heats up, circulates through the dryer, and then exits through a vent at the top. As the food dries, moisture is carried away with the hot air.

The electric dehydrator works in the same manner. After you place your food in the dehydrator, it needs little or no attention. Either appliance will dry the food evenly and quickly, doesn’t tie up your oven and produces great results in any weather.

Drying food in a conventional or convection oven takes a bit longer than using a dehydrator, but less time than if you relied solely on ol’ Sol. The cost of running your oven for the length of time needed will be more than for a dehydrator, too. And remember that if you are using your oven for drying, it isn’t available for other uses.

Sun drying is the oldest method and is dependent on perfect weather conditions to produce safely dried foods. It can take days to dry foods compared to hours.

This method is not a very good choice for our climate. You need 85ºF or hotter weather for several consecutive days with a low to moderate humidity level. If the temperature drops more than 20º below the highest temperature, which we often experience in our climate, this method is not ideal.

You also need to consider the air circulation, air pollution and what insects might be buzzing around your food when using the sun drying method.

Some tips to keep in mind when drying foods:

n Use only high quality food, that is ripe and in top condition.

n Wash and eliminate blemishes. Pretreat, by blanching or dipping the food in a liquid to control darkening, if the recipe calls for it. Cut food into uniform size pieces and thickness.

n Keep an eye on the food as it dries. The shorter the drying period, the less opportunity for mold to develop.

If mold does appear, remove with a clean cloth moistened with distilled white vinegar of an acidity level of five percent. Wipe the mold from the food and then wipe again with a new piece of cloth. The vinegar kills the mold spores.

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