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I have a dehydrator that I have only used to make beef jerky. I have an upcoming trip that I want to dehydrate some chicken, ham and hamburger. As I understand it, the point to dehydrating is to remove the moisture from the already cooked food. BTW I will use precooked chicken and ham. My first question is can you really over dehydrate the food? Obvioulsy, I am talking within reason but I want to make sure that I dry it enough. The second question is since I only have the regular trays, can I use wax paper to line the trays. ThanksRex
Skidsteer
03-26-2007, 20:03
I have a dehydrator that I have only used to make beef jerky. I have an upcoming trip that I want to dehydrate some chicken, ham and hamburger. As I understand it, the point to dehydrating is to remove the moisture from the already cooked food. BTW I will use precooked chicken and ham. My first question is can you really over dehydrate the food? Obvioulsy, I am talking within reason but I want to make sure that I dry it enough. The second question is since I only have the regular trays, can I use wax paper to line the trays. ThanksRex
-No, not within reason.
-Maybe, I've never tried it. I use oven parchment paper myself.
Yes, you can overdehydrate the food but it isn't easy to do. So don't worry about it happening.
And, yes, I use wax paper all the time in my dehydrator.
Parchment paper can be easily cut to fit trays, and is usually reusable :)
Btw, frying canned meats is very easy, and they come back to life quite fast!
littlelaurel59
03-26-2007, 21:43
I have not had good success with chicken thus far. Ground turkey worked great- as easy as ground beef.
I cooked a chicken breast, diced it up into small bits, then dehydrated. When I re-hydrated it, it was tough as leather. No amount of soaking or simmering helped.
Anyone have other ideas about chicken?
I hadn't thought about the ground turkey. I may plan on that instead of the chicken if no one else chimes in. I don't know if it would make any difference but the chicken I was thinking about is the precooked in the little cans/bags.
Rex
[quote=littlelaurel59;345298]I have not had good success with chicken thus far. Ground turkey worked great- as easy as ground beef.
If you want to dry chicken, the secret is either use canned versions to dry, or cook your chicken in a pressure cooker, then dry it.
Sadly, regular chicken will just become chicken jerky!
Today, I'm trying a tray of pulled pork (actually "ropa Vieja" per the frugal gourmet recipe) and a tray of refried beans.
I'm going to see how the pork rehydrates. If poorly, I will food process it into smaller pieces.
The meal will be "ropa vieja" , refritos and rice. Probably a two bag special, w instant rice in one and beans and pork mixed.
Report to follow.
Tom
I finally rehydrated the "pork and beans".(actually refried beans and ropa vieja Astray Recipes: Cuban ropa vieja (http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Cuban%20ropa%20vieja) with rice)
I food processed the beans when dry. I flash chopped the meat, also when dry.
When cooking, I used my plastic french press coffee pot. I threw in a bag of Success rice boil in a bag. It says 1 bag makes about 2 cups of rice.
I added about three cups boiling water (A Heineken pot, nearly full) everything was under water. I let it sit in the cosy for 15 minutes.
It came out pretty good. a bit soupy. Cutting the bag was a pain, I will put the rice in with the rest of the ingredients next time.
The meat rehydrated nicely.
My serving size (before dehydrating) was 1 cup cooked meat, one half can refried beans and about one cup of precooked rice.
Miles of Smiles
Tom
atraildreamer
04-01-2007, 20:26
American Harvest has an excellent website: http://www.nesco.com (http://www.nesco.com/)
if you want info on food dehydration. In fact, just google "food dehydration" and a LOT of good sites pop up. :)
I made a meatloaf out of very lean beef. After it was cooked I sliced it and then put it in the dehydrator. It worked really well and rehydrated easily. maybe you could do it with ground turkey or chicken.