Richard Maggs is our resident cooking doctor in the UK and abroad.
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Aga
Cooking Doctor |
| Q. I would like advice for drying fruit in the Aga, please.
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A. DRYING FRUIT WITH AN AGA
You will be pleased to hear that it is certainly possible to dry all kinds of fruits and vegetables including peppers and pimentos using the same method. Here are my tips for success:
Food needs to be spread out so that the warm air can easily circulate.
I use rectangular wire cake cooling racks but slatted or perforated wooden trays can also be used, providing these are scrupulously clean.
For apple rings and mushrooms you can also experiment using wooden doweling and stringing them up as mini washing lines.
Alternatively you can use a cloth such as butter muslin or cheesecloth but I have found this too messy for my liking.
Red and green are one vegetable which need steaming first to tenderise them before drying, see method below.
The coolest oven available to you should be used, so select the Warming Oven on 4 oven models, or low down but not on the floor with 2 and 3 oven models.
I prefer to dry things in the oven during the daytime on a day when I am at home but not cooking, because then I can monitor progress from time to time.
Fruits
From experimenting over the years I have found that the best fruits to dry are apples, apricots, peaches and pears. I have not had much success with grapes but that is probably more a comment on our vine than the Aga. With apples I only bother with eating varieties, as I prefer to turn a glut of windfall cookers into a purée or sauce for bottling or to stow away in the freezer. Similarly, although books claim you can dry plums, I have not met anyone who has thought the results worth it and again I think they preserve better other ways. With apples and pears you need to drop them into acidulated water as soon as they are cut so that the exposed surfaces have little chance of unsightly oxidisation. This simply means you dissolve 2 tbsp of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) powder available from good chemists and wine making shops in every pint (600ml) of warm water. Alternatively you can use salt at the rate of 1 tbsp per 2 pints (1.2 litres) of warm water but I find that this isnbt as effective as using the former. Leave the pieces submerged a suitably sized plate can help keep them pressed down under the surface for a good 8-10 minutes to process them to prevent browning. Older books on food preservation sometimes suggest a third strategy, burning flowers of sulphur to make a sulphurous gas to treat the fruit, which is no longer recommended. Nor would I bother with old-fashioned Campden Tablets which again rely on sulphur. Drain well before placing on wire racks to dry from 4-6 hours. If processing a number of batches, each may be finished off on trays on top of the cooker while fresh batches are started off in the ovens below. The fruit needs to be dried out until it feels leathery; if in doubt dry for longer rather than shorter times to guarantee good keeping qualities. When you start out, as a guide weigh a batch before drying, then weigh again afterwards; you should aim for them to lose about two-thirds of their weight. Pack in airtight containers in a cool, dry and dark place. When reconstituting dried fruit, pour over just enough boiling water to cover and leave overnight as they take many hours to plump up before cooking. Add no sweetening until they are cooked and tender as this would interfere with the osmosis by which the cells rehydrate.
Vegetables
Peas and beans are best allowed to dry on the vine if the weather is dry. If not, dry on trays on top of the Aga overnight as the oven method dries these vegetables out too quickly for quality results. I have not had success with Haricot beans or Runner and French varieties. These days I would recommend freezing the latter types, however salting them in a crock gives in fact the very best results that amaze people when they eat them out of season. Follow the method in any book on preserving and see for yourself. Provided you are 100% sure that the fungi you wish to preserve are edible, (to my mind this is for people growing mushrooms from a kit etc.) edible fungi dry exceptionally well. Choose the freshest specimens; wipe well with damp kitchen paper, there is no need to peel them. I donbt bother drying the stems, but use these fresh in a soup, casserole or stock or very occasionally make a batch of home-made mushroom ketchup which lasts for years and is a really useful and favourite ingredient of mine. I have had the best results from drying mushrooms whole, although you can obviously slice them if you prefer. For onions, cut into thin rings and take care that they dry until crisp. For peppers, halve and remove the seeds. Cut into neat quarters. Place in a pan on top of a collapsible steamer with some boiling water below. Cover and bring quickly to the boil then transfer the pan to the Simmering plate and steam for exactly 10 minutes. Remove them immediately using tongs and dry as soon as possible in your coolest Aga oven. Chillies from the garden can be dried as they are. Pack in airtight containers in a cool, dry and dark place. When reconstituting dried vegetables and fungi, pour over just enough cold water to cover or for dried pulses cover by a good inch (2.5cm) of cold water and leave overnight. For fungi you can use them drained after 30-40 minutes, adding the warm soaking liquid to the recipe at a later stage. In this case, strain the soaking liquid through a clean cloth to remove any small pieces of grit that may be fallen from the dried fungi. Add no salt until they are cooked and tender as this would interfere with the osmosis by which the cells rehydrate.
I hope that helps.
Best wishes
Richard Maggs
The Aga Cookery Doctor
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