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How to Blanch Potatoes for Drying

Before you dry potatoes you must first blanch them in just the right way. Blanch potatoes for drying with help from a food host and private chef in this free video clip.

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Video Transcript

Hi, I'm chef Mariko. Today, I'm going to show you how to blanch potatoes for drying. Potatoes are like any other vegetable where you can dry them in the oven or dehydrator. Before you do it's important to blanch them. What blanching means is boiling them for just enough time to kill all the bacteria. So when you dry them or dehydrate them then they can last a lot longer. To get started you'll want to have some thinly sliced potatoes. You can slice them in a Cuisinart or a mandolin. Or you can do them by hand. Just as long as they're thin. Then you want to get a pot of boiling water going. Here's about four quarts of boiling water and I'm going to add about a tablespoon of salt. Again the salt and the boiling water is going to help kill any bacteria that's in the potatoes. Now I'm just going to put my potatoes in the boiling water and let them boil for about a minute. We don't want them to cook, we just want to kill all the bacteria that might be in there. It's been about a minute and my potatoes are ready to pull out from the boiling water. I'm using my wire mesh ladle and putting them on a parchment lined backing sheet. You can put them on a baking sheet if you are going to dry them in the oven or you can put them on the trays of your dehydrator instead. Now my potatoes are blanched and ready for drying in either the oven or the dehydrator. This is chef Mariko, showing you how to blanch potatoes for drying.