[CH] dehydrated chili

Chad A Gard (gard@indy.net)
Tue, 18 Feb 2003 11:43:27 -0500 

With the recent discussion of vacuum packagers and the like, I thought 
I'd mention a recent experiment in food preservation.

Weekend before last I made about 6 gallons of chili, which was a bit 
more than I had space for in the freezer, and more than I had gladware 
containers and vacuum packager bags to store, anyway.  I also had been 
pondering making a dehydrator chili, which some may recall from 
conversations on the list last fall.  But at the time I was thinking of 
dehydrating the ingredients to make the chili, which would prove 
difficult with regards to ratios, since you couldn't really taste it as 
you were making it.

Anywho, a serving to me is 2 cups of chili, so I broke out the "fruit 
leather" sheets that the dehydrators came with, and put 2 cups of chili 
on each tray.  Put them in the "good" dehydrator, turned it up to 145 
degrees, and dehydrated overnight (about 10 hours total).  The result 
was a thin and brittle film with little beans and such in it, which I 
crumbled and stored for a bit, a bit afraid to try it.

Well, last week I rehydrated my chile, by adding 2 cups of hot water 
and simmering it for about 5 minutes.  The main goal, of course, is to 
be able to take the stuff camping/backpacking.

The result was much better than I expected!  The "sauce" part came out 
well, with good flavor retention.  The tomatoes came back so well you 
couldn't tell they had ever been rehydrated.  The beans came out well, 
though they looked a little wrinkled in texture (same mouth-feel, 
though).  I often put cubed potatoes in my chili to make it a bit 
"heartier".  The potatoes came out OK, though they were only about 1/2 
the size they were before dehydration.  The only thing that was below 
expectation was the meat.  Larger pieces of meat ended up 
chewy/leathery.  Perhaps soaking before simmering on rehydration would 
work, but I think next time I'll use hamburger and sausage and break 
the pieces up very very fine, like the ground beef on a Pizza King BBQ 
Beef pizza, if anyone else has had the privilege of one of those 
treats...  I'm also going to try other already-prepared soups and stews 
and see how they come out.



Chad A Gard
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