I’ve had a few emails recently about dehydrating pasta sauces. To be honest the dehydration system does not lend itself to subtly. I’d stick to basics like the meat sauces and roasted tomato sauces I’ve featured in the dehydration section.

A great pasta sauce is a simple sauce. It will be simmered until rich and will just coat the pasta it sits in. Dehydration will loose you the effect of cooking and coating. I’d keep it simple.

f you’re not much of a cook, here is a normal recipe that illustrates the problems. Try this at home. It is cheap, easy and a stunner.

Serves two.

Tomato Sauce

Take a reasonably good tin of tomatoes (medium priced), chopped. Chop two cloves of garlic.

Gently soften the garlic in olive oil. You don’t want to sate it but just soften it up a little. Add tomatoes and simmer for around 20 to 30 minutes.

You don’t need anything else, no onions, balsamic vinegars, wine or sugar. The longer you cook tomatoes the richer they become.

You could (if you have some) add some shredded, fresh. basil leaves.

Aubergines

Take one decently sized aubergine and slice it lengthways into strips (not too thin or too thick — about 4 mm will do).

Gently fry the aubergine in olive oil. You will need more oil than normal. While frying sprinkle top with sea salt and pepper. When getting golden on the base turn the slices over. You won’t have to add any more oil as the oil soaked up by the aubergine will have soak through the vegetable. Make sure this does not burn. But make sure the aubergine is cooked all of the way through — it will be soft and easily pulled apart by a knife. There is nothing worse than un-cooked aubergine.

When the slices are done drain on some kitchen paper and set aside.

Pasta

Dried, robust, pasta goes best with this — penne or rigatoni. Bring water to boil and cook until al dente (meaning there is still some bite left in the pasta). Most packet instructions will have yo cook the pasta for too long. Remember, the pasta still cooks after drained and it will then be added to the sauce for a while. Just test the pasta and choose when ready by taste.

Dice the aubergine slices and add to the tomato sauce (which is still simmering).

Drain pasta and add to sauce. Toss or stir until the pasta is coated with sauce — there should not be too much excess liquid (but it you’ve simmered the sauce for 30 mins you’ll have no problems). Add some fresh basil if you have it.

Sprinkle with fresh parmesan and (if you like) drizzle a little good olive oil over the top.

There you have it. A simple variation of pasta and tomato sauce. The aubergine gives it a wonderful, creamy, richness and texture. A cheap and superb supper.

I’d forgotten how good this could be until I saw chef Theo Randall cooking this on TV the other day. I immediately rushed out and bought an aubergine. Heaven!

The point of all of this?

There is no way you can replicate this through dehydrating!

On the trail you just want something that is more or less tasty and has some carbs in it. I find the use of carrot and celery makes a difference but gentler tastes just get lost in the dehydration process.

I’ve clustered together all of my dehydration pages in one place (or rather they are linked by a new home page). You can see them at the address below:

The Home Dehydration Pages

The latest batch of dehydrated food has been a good old bolognese sauce, and I thought I’d describe the cooking method and recipe here.

Beyond Spag Bog

We’ve all cooked Spag Bog in our time, that bedsit favourite made out of minced beef, tinned tomatoes and tomato puree. While this has always been a firm favourite it really bears little resemblance to the italian dish which is very subtle and deep in its taste.

The Real Thing — Italian

While in Italy this sauce may be complex there is no authentic recipe. This is something that is made in every home and everybody has their own version. Even in Bologna you would be hard pushed to find two people using the same recipe.

Most italian versions would start with the ‘holly trilogy;’ of onion, celery and carrot. This adds a floral note to the sauce (I’m beginning to sound like a TV chef here!). As I’ve said before, dehydrators loose taste and so the extra complexity of these vegetables is a good thing — the floral tastes do make it into the reconstituted meal.

Meat is more often than not fried separately, allowing it to caramlise on the outside. I’ve seen this made with ground beef and pancetta (streaky bacon) or 50/50 with ground beef and ground pork.

The sauce is the made up with wine (red or white — though I use white) and chicken stock. Tinned tomatoes seem optional but tomato puree is usually there. The trick is to not drown everything with tomato but to allow the other flavours to come through strongly.

Fresh herbs add another layer of flavour. Fresh oregano is often to found here as is thyme and bay. Some people add lots of fresh basil. Mushrooms may or may not be used. Some folks (though not all) add milk to the sauce.

All of these ingredients are traditional. I have one contemporary touch which I picked up from Heston Bluemenhal and that is to add some ground star anise to the sauce. Star anise is one of those ingredients that is strong in umami, one the basic tastes (along with sweet, sour, salt) that was only identified in 1908. Umami is particularly suited to bringing out the taste of meats. Mushrooms are also high in umami as soy sauce (monosodium glutamate) and fish sauce. I certainly think this addition does give you something extra, although Italian grandma’s (or Nonnas) would probably explode!

Whatever recipe is used the trick to a bolognese is long cooking. I would always cook mine for at least three hours. The sauce is better if it sits overnight.

Adapting for Dehydration

You can now see why this is such a complex sauce. No doubt others of you will have other suggestions and ideas as well. What I try and do is to work out which things work when the sauce is blasted by a dehydrator for 18 hours or so.

Dehydration will destroy subtlety but it will retain a certain level of complexity. So, when dehydrating.

Use carrot and celery together with onion and garlic. I sweat these in a very small amount of sunflower oil. You can simply sweat them in a small amount of water. Th trick here is to not dehydrate fat.

Don’t bother browning the meat separately. Stick to lean beef and avoid bacon and pork, which are both too fatty. I tend to ground my own mince in a foot processor, buying lean stewing steak or frying steak from the supermarket.

I think white wine adds flavour where red wine simply dominates.

Don’t bother with him made stocks (if you use them), simply use a decent cube.

Don’t be too heavy on the tomato paste. Tomato takes a long time to dehydrate.

Do add your herbs. You won’t end up with a very herby dish, but you will know that they are there. I think oregano, thyme and bay work better than basil when you are dehydrating.

I do add mushrooms , mainly because they add a nice texture to the rehydrated dish. But slice them thinly as they can also take ages to dehydrate

I still cook the sauce for my three hours.

I will often store the dehydrated sauce with pasta that has already been cooked. Simply cook as normal and dry on a separate tray. As the pasta has already been cooked it will re-hydrate very quickly. If you make your own pasta you’ll find that you can still tell it is homemade even after you have dehydrated it.

So, there’s my system. No doubt you dehydrators have you own variants. I’d love to hear about them!

These two curry recipes will introduce you to most of the basic techniques. Of course, you don’t have to curry everything. Here are some ideas o adapting recipes.

Bolognese

Make your usual sauce but watch the fat. Use only lean beef and avoid fatty pork or bacon. The longer you cook a bolognese the richer it will be. This is due to the tinned tomatoes which get richer the longer they are cooked. Cook for three hours if you can, or one and a half hours and leave overnight.

I use a base of chopped vegetables, onion, carrots and celery and this is good when dehydrating. I also add white wine. You can make the sauce a little heavier by adding red wine — add mushrooms and you can call this chicken chasseur!

Chasseur/red wine sauces seem to end up a bit bland but you may like them.

Lamb Provencal

Lovely and easy. Prepare as for lamb curry but with just onions and garlic. Add cooked mince. Add tomatoes and some thyme or oregano and bay if you have it. Top up with chicken stock. Add some pitted olives and a little balsamic vinegar if you like. Cook for an hour and a half. Dehydrate. This may look simple but so long as it os cooked for a while it is delicious.

Fish Pie

Fish is notoriously dodgy to dehydrate — it’s the smell when you are cooking that cause the problems. Rose Cartwright produces great dehydrated fish pies and no doubt the recipe will be included in their forthcoming book. I’ve only made this once and it was OK. Here is a recipe with some ideas for improvements.

Poach fillets of white fish (cod, pollack, haddock) in milk flavoured with a bay leaf and some pepper.

Remove fish from liquor but reserve the liquor. Flake the fish into nice, small flakes.

Make a basic white sauce, using the milk liquor that you poached the fish in (get a cook book or use the web if not sure). WHen it is a reasonably creamy consistency add the flaked fish and then ad some ready cooked prawns. You could add some tarragon if you have it, lots of parsley otherwise.

When the prawns are cooked (only a minute or so) you are ready.

I’d experiment now with adding quite a bit of grated cheese. Stir until melted into sauce.

Lay on dehydrating trays and dry.

Re-hydrate with dried potato.

Because of the fish and the fat content I wouldn’t keep this too long. If you do keep it be sure to keep it in the freezer.

This is one of my favourites. I grind my own spices. Subtly is lost in the drying process and that just means there is no need for complicated spice mixes.

Ingredients

Lamb steaks (lean)
Tin of tomatoes
fresh chillies
onions
garlic
1 tsp of ground cumin
1 tsp of ground coriander
3 to 4 inch cinammon stick
1 tsp of chillie powder or a sprinkle of dried chillie flakes.
1 packet of ready washed spinach

Mince the lamb steaks – you decide how many portions you want.

Fry spices for 30 seconds or so in a little groundnut or sunflower oil. Add chopped onions, garlic (use quite a bit of garlic) and fresh chopped chillie (to taste) and gently fry in a little groundnut or sunflower oil.

Add minced lamb (cheffy types will have already browned this off in a separate pan).

Add tomatoes. Add water to cover. You may add some potato here, but keep the pieces relatively small.

Bring to boil and then gently simmer until the meat is tender and the sauce nice and thick.

Add all of the spinach. Cover and cook for a while longer until the spinach has wilted into the sauce and has given it a creamy texture. Remove cinnamon stick

Dehydrate.

You can mix this with dried rice but for some reason I prefer to keep the rice separate for this dish

This is my own discover — and superb it is to.

You will need a pack (or two) of good tomatoes (on the vine), some fresh garlic and onion. Have some balsamic vinegar standing by. If you like chillies take one or two medium red chillies.

Roughly chop the onion and the garlic (you can leave the onion out completely) Halve the tomatoes and place them in a baking dish/tray/ceramic dish. Sprinkle over the garlic (and or onion). Add halved chillies if you wish. Sprinkle over a little olive oil and add some balsamic if you wish.

Roast in a medium-low oven until the tomatoes are cooked and beginning to char. The time taken depends on your oven but it often takes longer than you think. Watch carefully. Do not the garlic and onion burn! A gentler oven is best. If you are not sure turn down the heat and cook for longer.

When everything is cooked empty the ingredients into a liquidiser or food processor and blitz until you have a thickish soupy consistency. Alternatively, shove though a masher until you get something similar (the tomatoes will need to be thoroughly cooked though).

You now have a great winter sauce for pasta or grilled chicken. Add fresh herbs such as basil.

To dehydrate simply spread over a couple of dehydration trays. Make sure the paste is reasonably thinly spread.

Deydrate overnight and perhaps into the next day — tomato takes time.

A versatile Leather

You will end up with a tomato-type leather.

This is wonderfully versatile stuff.

You can rip bits off and add to a pan of pasta that is simmering away, to get a quick tomato sauce. Simply add more to get the right thickness. (You don’t have to add too much water to pasta that has been pre-dried).

Alternatively, I use this to add depth to other dried dishes. Often I’ve lost a bit of taste in the drying process. While the meal is rehydrating I’ll often add a few strips of this stuff to make it richer.

Alternatively this good mixed with fresh foods. In the Pyrenees this summer I wanted to avoid taking in dried meat produce. I took a lot of tomato leather with me and added it to local sausages, fresh cheese, chillies and so on when preparing a meal. Very tasty.

Finally, I use this as an emergency supply.

Let’s say I’m planning to walk for three days without resupply. It is sensible to cary food for four days just in case. By using tomato leather and couscous I can have a very lightweight emergency day’s rations.

Try it. You wont be disappointed.

The sauce is great for cold winter days (without dehydration) – it really is quite hearty.

And so to Green Curry — this does seem to be the one that has got you all going!

I call this ‘porridge’ for reasons that will become obvious. It may look a bit of a mush but it tastes wonderful. And the good news for you all is that this recipe works just as well at home! It is based on an original from Nigel Slater.

This makes four portions. You can easily make more — you will have paste left over and it stores for ages in the fridge. Simple adjust other ingredients sensibly.

Ingredients

Curry Paste

4 lemongrass stalks
6 medium heat green chillies, seeded and crushed
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
5 cm piece of galangal or ginger
2 shallots peeled and finely chopped
4 tablespoons chopped, fresh, coriander
a teaspoon of ground cumin
a teaspoon of ground coriander
a teaspoon of chopped lime zest
a tablespoon of ground black peppercorns

other ingredients

Chicken breasts or thighs (enough for four)
200 grams of mushrooms, thinly sliced (optional)
400 mil tin of coconut milk
400 ml of chicken stock
8 lime leaves
t tablespoon of Thai fish sauce (nam pla)
1 tablespoon of bottled green peppercorns, drained (optional)
a large bunch of fresh basil leaves
a bunch of fresh coriander leaves

Basics and Buying Info

They key to this dish is the curry paste. It is worth tracking the ingredients down. You will find them in all chinese stores and in many, larger supermarkets.

Kafir lime leaves look rather like bay leaves although they taste very different. Like bay you can buy them fresh of dried (fresh is best if you can get them).

The fish sauce is easily available these days and indispensable.

You need lots of lime juice and the skin (though not the pith) of the limes.]

Galangal is a route rather like ginger. It has a similar though different — less stringent — taste. If you can find galangal then great but if not just use fresh ginger.

Whole spices freshly ground are very different from bought, ground stuff (and they last a long time).

Instructions

First make the paste. Chop up the lemon grass into small pieces. Add to a food processor with the rest of the ingredients and then blitz. Alternatively place in small bowl or water jug and attack with a hand blitzer. If you have neither machines then get a good knife (or cleaver) and chop until very fine.

Put paste in a container of jam jar for keeping in the fridge. having the paste in the fridge is great as you have now done most of the hard work.

Cook the chicken. Simply add a little groundnut or sunflower oil to a wok or good pan and fry on both side until the pieces have taken on some colour. Cook in batches rather than over-fill the pan — the chicken will boil rather than fry. If you are making this well in advance you may simply want to simmer the pieces in boiling water until clearly cooked — this uses no oil and is now quite a common method of cooking for health conscious chinese cooks. Whichever methods you use, drain chicken on kitchen paper.

Heat a tiny amount of oil in the pan and throw in the mushrooms if being used. Add the coconut milk and the stock. Then throw in the lime leaves. Add four tablespoons of your green curry paste, the fish sauce, peppercorns and half of the fresh basil and coriander. Bring to boil, turn down the heat and simmer for ten minutes giving everything a good stir from time to time.

Then return the chicken to the pan and add another tablespoon of green paste. Simmer for a further five minutes or so. Stir in the rest of the green herbs.

You should now have a fine dish which you serve with aromatic rice.

To dehydrate do the following.

Drain off the liquid in a colander into a pan (we need the liquid). Take the cooked chicken and mush and blitz it in a food processor or hand blitzer. You should end up with paste. Gradually stir the reserved liquid back into the blitzed chicken until you have a reasonably consistent sauce. Sometimes this can be problematical. If it gets lumpy, break up the lumps ( a hand blitzer is good).

I would then add my cooked rice to the sauce.

What you now have is something that looks very much like porridge (but tastes great).

Spread on one or more trays and then dehydrate until dry.

I hall now move on and add a few recipes. These will only be hear to illustrate what can be done, but a few of them are equally as good as normal food at home.

Bob and Rose at Backpackinglight.co.uk are writing a dehydation cookbook. I should really say that Rose has already written it. Bob just has to lay out the pages.

Come on Cartwight, get the finger out ….

… you can see the interest around here!

A food dehydrator can produce not only some absolutely sublime fruit and vegetable dishes but also some great trail food.

Fruit

Is easily prepared. Slice your fruit into thin slices, place on dehydrator tray and dehydrate until you have fruit chips. (This can take longer than you think).

Fruits that works well here include: banana, strawberry (but try and gets ones that taste of something in the first place, raspberry, blackberry, apple, pear, peach, plum and so on.

I tend to take a while bunch of mixed, dried, fruit and mix them together in a large Aloksak. This I use as a snack as I walk and desert in the evening …

… and I tell you what, sprinkle some on your porridge in the morning (or add to muesli) and you really will have improved the taste of your breakfast.

What you end up with is a wonderful mix of tastes with little nuggets of red fruits simply bursting with flavour in the mouth.

You will probably end up doing this right through the year and not simply waiting until there is a backpacking trip. Far, far, better than any commercially dried products — even those from health food shops

Vegetables

These can be prepared in much the same way. Carrots ad other root vegetables work well. Cauliflower is unbelievably good. You must blanch your vegetables for a couple of minutes in boiling water before you slice and add to a dehydrating tray.

A vegetable mix is great to have in a pack pocket to munch on as you walk.

Dried, mixed, vegetables can also simply be added to carbs for a quick meal, either for a quick lunch (with couscous) or in the evening. Chillies, peppers and onion work well here.

Fruit Leathers

These are amazing things. You simply spread out a fruit puree onto a baking tray and then dehydrate. You end up with a leathery-kind of product which is very concentrated and taste gorgeous. Simply break off a bit and chew.

Some soft fruits can simply be blended together and then dried. Other fruits such as apple and rhubarb work well but need to be cooked first (and you may need to add some sugar). Apricot is a good base for a leather

I also find that fruit and yogurt smoothies work really well too. Simply blend up your mixture and then dehydrate. Comes out like a leather.

Vegetable Soups

I’ve added these because they can also be lovely. Ingredients need to be chopped quite small but in many ways the simplest thing to do is to simply liquidise them. Drying then proceeds as for potato.

Leek and potato, lentil and tomato, pea, brocolli (surprisingly good) and mushroom all work well.

Remember to use milk for taste rather than butter or other fats. TRy and keep oil to a bare minimum when sweating leeks or onions (or simply simmer them in water first).

When we eat our home dried meals we will be eating with a portion (or two) of carbs, pasta, rice, couscous, potato and so on. These can be added to the sauce (and I will provide some recipes that do that) or they can be stored separately.

Couscous is an old favourite for backpackers. It is very quick, light and works brilliantly with the pot cozy system. But over a week or two you can get, well, very fed up of couscous. Fortunately by pre cooking and drying other carbs we can have something that is just as quick and easy to prepare as couscous .

Rice

Quick cook rice that you buy in the shops is actually prepared this way, i.e. it is pre cooked and dried. I think tasty rices such as basmati and Thai rice really works well like this.

Simply steam your rice. Now there are many ways than this, but these two will always work

1. Add a measure of rice to a pan and the add twice the volume of water (or just under twice). Bring to a rolling simmer, turn down heat and leave to steam for about 20 minutes.

2. Add a measure of rice to a bowl and add twice the amount of boiling water. Cover with cling film. Leave to absorb for 20 mins (fine with white long grain rice).

When the rice is cooked, and the water absorbed, place on a drying sheet. Dehydrate until thoroughly dry. Place in zipped bags and crush to break up the grains.

NOTE: make sure that all of the rice is dry. If some feels a little damp break up the clump and dry some more. Wet rice goes off quickly and you will find a green-infested rice when you come to cook it.

To use, simply add to your food when you place it in the cooking pot. It will quickly rehydrate as you cook the food.

Pasta

This works in a similar way. Cook your pasta of choice (tagliatelle and penne works best I think). Drain. Place on drying sheet and dehydrate until thoroughly dry.

This rehydrates very quickly and, of course, the pasta has already been cooked. Pasta in a few seconds.

Potato

I don’t know about you but I hate commercially-dried potato. It is full of salt and has that unmistakable taste of preservative about it. The French are much better at it. Most French supermarkets sell a range of dehydrated soups and potato purées (mouseline) that are fabulous. They tend to cook their potatoes in milk before it is dried. Of course, you can’t add butter before you dry something but it is surprising how well milk works.

You can easily replicate this at home.

The tick is to make a potato purée — quite a wet one — rather than traditional mash. You don’t want lumps in it. Using a ricer gives great results, or when drained add more milk until it is very smooth. It doesn’t matter how thin it is as you’re going to remove the moisture anyway.

You will end up with a kind of thickish pancake like mixture. This can be broken up and placed in bags. It will take a while to reheat. If you have a food processor simply grind to a powder.

Add to cooking pot to taste.

You can make more exotic mash by cooking the potatoes in milk with a bay leaf or two to infuse (a bay tree in the garden is always a good thing to have). Add a clove or two of garlic with the potatoes and mash with them

Don’t add too much salt. Salty food takes longer to dry (a rule for all dishes). Carry a little sachet of salt and pepper with you when you walk if you must).

Virtually all carbohydrate sources can be dried this way although there’s probably no benefit in pre-drying those foodstuffs (such as couscous and quinola) that cook very quickly.

For a difference try replacing rice with bulgar wheat occasionally.