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How to Prepare Dehydrated Food
“Dehydrated”
means “removing the water” from something. So, rehydrating it should be a
simple matter of just dumping some water on dried foods and having it
magically return to its original form.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and rehydrating food is a
little more complicated. The good news is it’s still pretty simple.
If you’ve ever cooked rice and oatmeal or prepared dried beans, you’re
already a rehydration expert. Oats and rice are merely dried cereal
grains that are cooked and rehydrated in one step.
Instant potato flakes
http://www.areyouprepared.com/Potato-Flakes-p/dh07.htm are another
familiar dehydrated food that’s familiar to most people. The rehydration
and cooking process is much like that of rice and oatmeal, but it
requires only the addition of boiling water to render them edible.
You could do the same thing with dried beans, but you'd use a lot of
cooking fuel. Most people soak dried beans in water overnight, or bring
them to a brief boil to shorten their soaking time, to soften their
outer seed coats. The beans expand to several times their dried volume
and are then cooked.
Only cold water is needed to rehydrate most of these foods. On the other
hand, the application of a little heat speeds up the process. If you
want a food product that’s somewhat similar to its fresh counterpart,
using cold water is your best choice. If you’re going to use the
rehydrated food in a cooked dish, using warm or hot water puts food on
the table a little faster.
Beans and other legumes require special handling not needed when
preparing vegetables such as our
http://www.areyouprepared.com/Carrot-Dices-p/dh03.htm and our
http://www.areyouprepared.com/Cabbage-p/dh51.htm. Most vegetables are
easily and quickly rehydrated using water. The seed coatings of legumes
contain a large amount of proteins which toughen when exposed to salt,
acid and prolonged high temperatures during their initial soaking and
cooking. If you want your beans to soften successfully, avoid adding
salt, vinegar, wine, tomatoes or other acid-containing products until
the final stages of cooking.
Most dehydrated foods don’t require this much fuss. Measure a specific
amount of dried food and then add three times as much water to rehydrate
it properly. Make sure the food is submerged in the water. Wait about
20 to 30 minutes and – voila’ – you have rehydrated food ready for
immediate consumption or further preparation in an entrée or side dish.
Don’t add any salt or other seasonings until you’ve rehydrated the
product and its flavor emerges.
Meat and its TVP analogs require similar handling as vegetables.
However, rehydrate meat under refrigeration or at least on top of ice to
avoid exposing it to warmer temperatures that encourage spoilage.
Alternatively, cut meat into bite-sized pieces and drop them into the
boiling water it will be cooked in.
Add some edible fat to both dehydrated meat and TVP dishes to improve
their rib-sticking qualities.
http://www.areyouprepared.com/TVP-Chicken-p/dh12.htm Their low fat
content makes them shelf-life champions but leaves them less than
satisfying to hungry people.
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