Dehydrated Parsley Potatoes

 

Recently, someone bought a box of surplus potatoes to the Senior Center as a freebie for everyone.  I took my share home and thought about what to do with them.  They are wonderful little baby red potatoes and I wanted something special. I decided to try one of our favorite dishes, parsley potatoes.

 

 

Rather than peel them and loose all those nutrients in the skin, I simply scrubbed them with a brush.

 

Normally, when I make parsley potatoes, I cut them into good-sized chunks.  But for the sake of dehydrating, I needed to make them smaller and consistently thinner. Most of these potatoes were a bit bigger than golf-ball sized. I sliced them in lengthwise quarters, then sliced pieces a little less than ½ inch wide.

Sliced and ready to cook

The next trick was to infuse the lemon flavor. Normally, the raw potatoes are cooked with lemon juice, parsley, and butter until they are tender and beginning to brown. But of course, butter is a no-no in dehydrating.

I decided the best way to infuse the potatoes with lemon flavor was to simmer the potatoes in lemon water.

Here is the formula:

• 8 cups water
• 2 cups lemon juice 

I simmered the potatoes in the lemon water until they were about half done.  

Linda’s note: Next time I would suggest cooking them until they are tender, but not falling apart.  I found it took too long to rehydrate. 

 

Cold Water Bath

Of course, after cooking, you want to plunge them into cold water to stop the cooking process.  Just like blanching.

Ready to Dehydrate

• These were drained and racked for dehydrating.
• 120 º for about a day and a half. This time may vary depending on your machine, the ambient humidity where you live, and the moisture content in your potatoes.

Dehydrated and Ready to Store

To my delight, when I nibbled a few, they definitely had the lemon flavor. I thought about adding parsley flakes to the package, but I figured they would sift to the bottom of the bag. 

However, when these are bagged for long-term storage, I will add a small packet of parsley flakes per bag. I don’t want the parsley flakes to overcook. They should be added at the end, along with the butter.

 

Rehydrate

• 1 cup potatoes
• 2 cups water, or enough to cover the potatoes by about ½ inch
• Soak for 2 ½ hours – depending on your circumstances, it may take longer. Better yet, put them on to soak in the morning (in the fridge) and plan on using them for supper.

Linda’s Note: This recipe is for the sample test.  Unless you plan on serving just one portion, you will want to adjust your proportions. Also, I think if they had been cooked longer, they would have rehydrated sooner. 

Simmer 

I had to simmer them on medium low heat in order to finish cooking. I did need to add one more cup of water to get them tender enough. This took about 35 minutes. 

 

Once all the water cooked out, I added butter and a tablespoon of parsley flakes.  Salt to taste. 

Continue cooking on medium to medium-low until they begin to brown. 

Ready to Eat!

Linda’s note:  Dehydrated potatoes tend to take a good bit of time to rehydrate when they a bit on the thickish side.  I thought about slicing them ¼ inch thick, but was afraid they would end up as a mashed mush. I really wanted to maintain the chunky texture.   

• Six quarts of fresh potatoes reducedto about two quarts dehydrated potatoes. 
• Normally, food rehydrates back to its normal size, but I found with these potatoes, one cup dried = one cup cooked. 
• The reason is that although they swelled during rehydration, when they simmered all that time, they crumbled a bit at the edges (normal). So the finished product ended up the same as the dehydrated quantity. 
• Think in terms of ½ to 1 cup of potatoes per serving.

Although rehydrating took a good bit of time, the major advantage of preparing them like this is that you can have delicious parsley potatoes even when they are out of season and the price is too high.