Dehydration
Probably one of mankind's oldest methods to preserve food, you can go the traditional way and lie your food out in the sun which i wouldn't dare in urban areas due to air pollution, turn on your oven on lowest heat and leave it there for hours using quite some electricity, or you get one of these fancy dehydrators. Basically, if your food rots, it is due to its water content. Suck out all the water, and you can get a pretty durable dry snack, somehow crisp, but still containing fibre and nutrition. Some items are fabulous to rehydrate, e.g. mushrooms, meaning you can soak them later in water and they blow up to a normal mushroom again.
I have been doing this a few times only for now, and not everything turns out tasty, e.g. the little carrots were leathery in texture and too earthy in taste, but many of the dried fruits and vegetable take on colours and shapes that lend themselves very well for decoration.
Big disadvantage for us here in Singapore is the humidity. Online instructions tell how easy it is to simply lock the dried fruits in jars and have them last for months. In my first session I just did so and all ended up as sweaty rubbers. The remaining air in the jar was sufficient for the dried fruits to soak themselves immediately with the humid air, and from there it gets rather ugly. Friends advised to add silicon jelly in the jars or put the jars in the fridge, and that is how my second batch survived splendidly: in the fridge.
Here now some pictures of the dehydration processes and some decoration ideas. Page will be updated with each session.
Probably one of mankind's oldest methods to preserve food, you can go the traditional way and lie your food out in the sun which i wouldn't dare in urban areas due to air pollution, turn on your oven on lowest heat and leave it there for hours using quite some electricity, or you get one of these fancy dehydrators. Basically, if your food rots, it is due to its water content. Suck out all the water, and you can get a pretty durable dry snack, somehow crisp, but still containing fibre and nutrition. Some items are fabulous to rehydrate, e.g. mushrooms, meaning you can soak them later in water and they blow up to a normal mushroom again.
I have been doing this a few times only for now, and not everything turns out tasty, e.g. the little carrots were leathery in texture and too earthy in taste, but many of the dried fruits and vegetable take on colours and shapes that lend themselves very well for decoration.
Big disadvantage for us here in Singapore is the humidity. Online instructions tell how easy it is to simply lock the dried fruits in jars and have them last for months. In my first session I just did so and all ended up as sweaty rubbers. The remaining air in the jar was sufficient for the dried fruits to soak themselves immediately with the humid air, and from there it gets rather ugly. Friends advised to add silicon jelly in the jars or put the jars in the fridge, and that is how my second batch survived splendidly: in the fridge.
Here now some pictures of the dehydration processes and some decoration ideas. Page will be updated with each session.
1st session
(25.8.2016)
2nd session
(3.9.2016)
Cooking with dehydrated deco
(9.9.2016)
home cooked chicken leg in coffee bbq sauce decorated with dehydrated mushroom and dehydrated broccoli (the broccoli are like crispy smoked chips)