Re: [CH] dehydrated chili

Hobby Farmer (hobbyfarmer@t-one.net)
Tue, 18 Feb 2003 14:24:01 -0500 

Hi, group;

I've had my Little Chief for over 20 years now and it just keeps going. 
  When I am making chipotles, after the smoking phase, I lift the lid 
and set it back on a little askew.  This seems to speed the drying 
process quite a bit.

Every summer we buy a grocery sack of pecans.  We save the shells and 
mix them with hickory shavings.  Makes a wonderful flavored smoke.  We 
run the apple tree trimmings through the chipper and use them, too.

Apple smoke some habaneros and Red Savinas, then don't wash the racks 
before you smoke up a few fall run steelheads (18 pound rainbow trout 
from Lake Michigan).  Hot fish!

Hobby Farmer

Love2Troll wrote:
> A great suggestion!  I bought a Little Chief electric smoker last fall from Cabelas to smoke/dry peppers and I think it would work well for dehydrating chili too.  I make my chili 4 gal at a time and usually freeze it.  Going to try Spam jerky too.
> 
> JohnT
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: Chad A Gard 
> To: Chile-heads@globalgarden.com 
> Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 10:43 AM
> Subject: [CH] dehydrated chili
> 
> 
> 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
> INCHASE: <http://www.inchase.org>
> PercussionAdvocates: <http://www.percussionadvocates.com>
> 
> .
>