File Name : Culinary Techniques Dusting Off the Dehydrator
Length : 4:38 Male Speakers : James Briscione
FemaleSpeakers : Dana Cowin Date : January 4, 2016
[0:00:00:0] DANA: People give me the most generous gifts.
Big, large boxes of this year's coolest piece of equipment.
But I'm incredibly curious about the dehydrator.
JAMES: We have a really simple dehydrator.
This is the type that most people probably have at home.
There's so many cool things that you can do with it.
Take whatever you've got left over and dry it out, and use it in different ways.
We're going to make salsa powder.
DANA: Awesome.
JAMES: We're going to dehydrate all these vegetables, grind them up and then use them
to season fresh tortilla chips.
So we're just going to start slicing here.
I'll give you tomatoes, and we've got peppers and onions and scallions.
So the key here, you know, when we start slicing these vegetables, is we want to keep it pretty
thin so that they dry evenly and they don't take forever.
DANA: Mine are thinner than yours.
Is that a problem?
JAMES: That's not a problem.
You know how to handle a knife.
Just little strips of the zest, we've got our lime, we've got our peppers.
DANA: I have to say it's really pretty just as is.
JAMES: It's just that easy.
Makes a really pretty picture for Instagram.
We're going to take a jalapeno here, because we want a little spice in our salsa.
Some onion and a little cilantro.
DANA: What would you do with the peels?
JAMES: The peels have good flavor.
They just grind up right with everything else.
So now these are going to take about 12 hours or so.
It might go a little bit quicker.
But again, the beauty is, it's not going to over-dry.
DANA: So there's no, nothing finicky about a dehydrator.
JAMES: Yeah.
At 12 hours it's no different than it is at 14 hours.
That's the beauty of this low temperature.
DANA: Great.
JAMES: So you want to grab a tray here and we'll get them into the dehydrator?
DANA: Sure.
JAMES: They're going to kind of shrink down as they start to dehydrate.
That's it.
DANA: That's so easy.
It doesn't matter what kind of dehydrator you buy?
JAMES: It really doesn't.
With this really simple model, you get everything in there and you're ready to go.
DANA: And it really, you can't do it in your oven, right?
JAMES: The problem with the oven, like we said, is your temperature.
In the oven the best you can do is about 150.
Here we're 125 or even below.
You can do a range of temperatures here.
You can go even lower and you can make yogurt.
All right, so here are some vegetables that we put in yesterday.
And you see we've got everything that we need for our salsa.
If you want to grab some of those tomatoes and onions and peppers, just going to put
them here into your basic spice grinder.
You know, this is a coffee or spice grinder.
You can fill it up.
DANA: Yeah.
Am I going to shake it?
JAMES: Get this grinding and give a little shake while, so you just press on the top
and then kind of move them around in there to help them grind.
You're not going to over-grind this.
We're trying to make powder.
DANA: I love that you can put everything in at once.
JAMES: You can do it either way.
Like I've got everything individual here.
It's fine, kind of fun to have lime powder in your pantry.
DANA: Yeah.
JAMES: You know, put it in your margarita glasses with a little lime powder and salt.
Careful with the jalapeno powder.
It's nearly weapons grade.
DANA: Ooh.
JAMES: Now we've got a shaker here.
So we're going to shake some of this in, and we already have a little salt in there.
DANA: OK.
JAMES: Because we are making chips after all, and without salt chips aren't going to be
so good.
Give that a little shake.
DANA: Want to be sure it's all mixed up.
JAMES: This is salsa powder.
DANA: I know you want to use it on chips.
JAMES: So we've got just some regular corn tortillas, and we're going to cut them into
triangles.
DANA: That part's really easy.
JAMES: Really easy, right?
And I've just got a pot of oil, and then just carefully drop them into the oil, about thirty
seconds or so.
DANA: OK, that looks yummy.
JAMES: Is really all it takes.
You can see they�re already starting to crisp up.
Just want to get them a little more color.
You shake the salsa powder, don't be shy with it.
DANA: Whoo.
JAMES: Give them a little toss and the most important part, the funnest part now, is the
taste test.
DANA: Taste test.
Let's see, what do we think?
It's so fresh.
JAMES: It's chips and salsa.
Not just chips with this.
Garlic bread.
DANA: I think that's so brilliant.
JAMES: With this.
DANA: Oh my God, salsa popcorn.
JAMES: We're going to revolutionize Super Bowl food this year.
DANA: I think so.
JAMES: With salsa powder.
DANA: Let's see, like tomato soup and salsa powder.
JAMES: Croutons.
DANA: I mean, I think it's kind of a magic ingredient.
JAMES: Right.
There's so many great ways just to use the dehydrator just in powdering vegetables and
fruits and turning things into what we never expected.
DANA: All right, I'm having another one.
JAMES: I think Dana and I are just going to head off with our bowl of chips, and we'll
see you guys later.
DANA: Yeah.
[Audio Ends]
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