Dehydrated potato question

[aggieterpkatie]

I dehydrated some white potatoes today. I dipped them in a water/lemon juice solution hoping to stop the oxidation but it didn't work. They're now dried and gray. Does that matter? What can I do in the future to prevent discoloring? I have some powdered citric acid. Would that be better?

 

[k0xxx]

We boil the potatoes with the skins on, cooking them all the way through, but not until they start to fall apart. We then put them in the refrigerator over night. The next day, we slice them thin and put the in the dehydrator at about 125 degrees, until they are translucent (about 10 +/- hours).

We don't use lemon juice on them, and they come out fine.

Hope this helps.

ETA: After refrigerating, we peel them before slicing.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Ahhh....I dried them raw. So they should definitely be cooked first?

 

[Kim_NC]

I blanche mine and leave them in a water/lemon juice solution until all of them are sliced and ready. These are the directions I follow:

- Prepare a solution of 1 gallon water and 1/4 cup lemon juice. Slice peeled or unpeeled potatoes into rounds 1/8 inch thick. (I prefer unpeeled.) Put potato slices in the water/lemon juice solution as you go.

- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a rolling boil. Drain potato slices and put into a vegetable basket. Plunge the basket into the boiling water and wait for the water to return to a boil.

- Once the water is boiling, start counting off 8 minutes of blanching time. While - potatoes are blanching, set up a large mixing bowl in your sink and fill it with ice water. When the potatoes have blanched for 8 minutes, plunge the basketful of potatoes immediately into the ice water and let them sit there for 15 minutes.

- Spread the blanched potato slices in a single layer between paper towels and blot them dry.

 

[k0xxx]

Ahhh....I dried them raw. So they should definitely be cooked first?

Well, it works for us and they don't turn gray or black. Kim_NC's method is to blanche them and sounds like it works good also. I guess it's a matter of which method that you prefer.

We learned how to do it from an internet site called dehydrate2store.com . There are a lot of good dehydrating how-to videos on the site.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Ahhh....I dried them raw. So they should definitely be cooked first?

Well, it works for us and they don't turn gray or black. Kim_NC's method is to blanche them and sounds like it works good also. I guess it's a matter of which method that you prefer.

We learned how to do it from an internet site called dehydrate2store.com . There are a lot of good dehydrating how-to videos on the site.

Thanks!! I'd rather go ahead and cook or blanch them instead of them turning gray!

 

[ORChick]

I've never dried potatoes before, but I have cooked a lot of them in my time . Blanching/partially cooking them would be the way to go, I would think, to keep them from changing color. But it would also seem to me that soaking in a lemon juice solution would be overkill. As you have found, lemon juice alone doesn't do it. And to keep them white before cooking all you need is to submerge them in water, to keep them from the air. That was my mother's trick at Thanksgiving, to get around all the last minute rush things in her tiny kitchen - she would (have one the children) peel the potatoes early, and leave them in a bowl of water till needed. So save your lemons for lemonaide .
A question about dehydrated potatoes - how do you use them? I have read of using shredded dried potatoes for hashbrowns; has anyone done that, and how do they taste?

 

[Kim_NC]

I rehydrate them and use them in scalloped potato dishes or other similar casseroles. Also they work well in soups and stews.

I haven't tried them shredded.

 

[k0xxx]

... I have read of using shredded dried potatoes for hashbrowns; has anyone done that, and how do they taste?

Yes we have shredded our potatoes also, they taste great. On the website that I mentioned in an earlier post, the video on dehydrating potatoes also shows drying store bought shredded potatoes and then reconstituting them, although we have not tried that yet.