Putting Food By - Janet Greene [185]
Indoor dryer. If using a dehydrator, start at 140 F/60 C, increase to 150 F/ 66 C after the first hour; if necessary, reduce to 140 F/60 C when nearly dry, to avoid browning. In a stove oven or handmade indoor dryer, aim to maintain a temperature of 140 F/60 C throughout. Test dry. Condition. Cool and store.
Open-air/sun-drying. Prepare as for an indoor dryer. Test dry. Pasteurize certainly. Cool and store. Solar dryer: about 70 percent of open-air/sun time.
Dry test. Easily crumbled.
Squash (all Varieties)
Treat like Pumpkin.
Drying Tomatoes
The newest commercially put-by food to reach celebrity status is the sun-dried tomato. Originally from Italy, where it is used much as North American cooks use their home-canned tomatoes, it is the plum/pasta/Roma type, the chunky little oblong without much juice but mighty in flavor. Since the mid-1980s it has superseded the classic “canner” in our catalogs.
To reconstitute dried tomatoes, cover with hot water, let stand until soft and plumped. If the water is not too salty, cook them in it for sauces and soups, etc. To hold for snipping—used like pimientos or olives for a garnish—remove from soak-water, rinse if you like, pat dry, and put in a storage jar with olive oil to cover.
Tomato Leather: Place 4 cups cored, cut-up tomatoes in a saucepan, adding, if you wish, ½ cup chopped onion, ½ cup chopped celery, 1 teaspoon minced garlic, and salt to taste. Cover and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes have broken down, about 20 minutes. Force mixture through a food mill or sieve to remove tomato seeds and skin. Transfer mixture to an electric frying pan or skillet and cook over low heat, stirring, until the consistency of applesauce. Spread on oiled foil or plastic freezer wrap and dry as for other Leathers, page 385.
Dried Tomatoes
Wash well; halve lengthwise. If you wish, remove seeds by running your index finger down the seed chamber. Cutting a slit in the skin side will hasten drying but will also cause dripping. Arrange halves skin-side-down in a single layer, with a small space between each, on trays. Salt lightly, if you wish.
Indoor dryer. Whether using a dehydrator, a stove oven, or a handmade dryer, dry at 140 F/60 C from start to finish. Do not turn. Test dry. Condition; store.
Drying time will be 6 to 18 hours.
Open-air/sun. Cover with cheesecloth raised slightly off the surface with wooden skewers, etc. Test dry. Pasteurize; store. Drying time: 3 to 12 days. Solar dryer: about 70 percent of open-air/sun time. (Don’t cover with cheesecloth.)
Dry test. Pliable or leathery but not moist or soft. When pressed, tomatoes should leave no pulp on the finger.
DRYING MEAT AND FISH
We shan’t give blow-by-blow instructions for making jerky as the Mountain Men did, or drying codfish with the expertise of a Newfoundland native. Here are the basic steps. Work in small batches, with complete sanitation; don’t cut corners. Refrigerate or freeze the finished product: high-protein foods like these invite spoilage.
Using Dried Meat and Dried Fish
Jerky traditionally was shaved off (or gnawed off) and eaten as is, because it was a staple for overland wanderers who were traveling light, and far from assured supplies of fresh meat. (Helpful ins and outs of concentrated journey food are to be found in Horace Kephart’s Camping & Woodcraft; see “pemmican” especially.) Today many versions of it appear in stick form as snacks, for either the Long Trail or a cocktail party.
Dried salt fish—the type described below—is always freshened by soaking beforehand, either in cold water or fresh milk; the soaking liquid is discarded here, because of the extremely high salt content. Such fish were standard fare even in the hinterlands far from salt water.
Drying Meat (Jerky)
Jerked meat is roughly ¼ the weight of its fresh raw state.
Preferred meats for jerking are mature beef and venison (elk is too fatty), and only the lean muscle is used. Partially freeze meat if possible to make slicing easier.