Dehydrating foods - Setup-Part 1

I was thinking of getting a dehydrator for doing the biltong and Jerky.
I'm very happy with my current settup for hanging the biltong, but its not an elegant solution. It was good to test out whether iit is worth persuing, so a cardboard box is fine for that, but it will fail over time.
So I started looking at Food Dehydrators and thinking about using one of those instead.
Having the utility room closed off is hany to leave a machine running as it is shut off from the rest of the house and so smells wond move all through the dwelling.
I'm looking at one on TradeMe at the moment, although I think I'll end up having to wait for one from China as I've not had much success buying on TradeMe at all. I'm not experienced enough.
Anyway, I'll wait a couple of days and see if the buyer will be interested in selling to me.

Dehydrator. 

 Why buy and use, the vid below gives a few reasons, but I think this is a way to be a bit more efficient with food and less wasteful.

I do like the idea of reducing bulk of products and also like the homemade effort for your food too. If I have time on my hands, why not, its quite enjoyable.
Ive been pleased with some of my other gadgets, such as the food mixer and air fryer, both of those have easily paid for themselves.

Meats
I'm interested in making more biltong, and instead of hanging it, if it dries on the trays and can be made more quickly, then that is great.

Fruits
Its coming into summer so getting cheap produce that I can dry and store will be great. I'm also interested in dehydrating and re-hydrating foods, so that will be a ifferent type of cooking to explore.

Vegetables
Getting a load of vegetables dried out allows me to have a lot of variety on hand when cooking. Carrots go off, so does the cabbage. I'd like to have some dried so that they are ready to use.

Dehydrated foods and poos. 
I saw a vid by a doctor that said stools were 70% water, and a lot of foods have mimimal water, so rest of fluid from your body, so as you get older you can become dehydrated.  So maybe with dehydrated foods best to rehydrate for use in meals.

 Pre-prepped dehydrated meals

The vid below shows how to pre-prep meals from dehydrated food. There is one for outdoor camping too that is interesting.

 I particularly like the mason jar vacuum sealer that you can use. See LINK. There is a standard mason jar and a wide one as well. one is 2 1/2" the other 3"

The camping one dehydrates meat for camping, he has another video where he re-hydrates and cooks meals, and because he's taken out all the fat from the meat (boiling the mince) he adds a bit of olive oil to add a bit of flavour back into meal.

I think for pre-prepped meals you need to cook the rice and then dehydrate it, so it cooks in the same time as other ingredients. I'm not sure if you need to do that for pasta though.
I quite like the idea of pre-bagged meals that you vacuum seal and leave for a quick heat'n'eat. Also, as you've made it you know what has gone into it.
I also really like the vacuum seal for mason jars too. That will preserve stuff for a lot longer.

Purchasing dehydrator and delivery

 I ordered a Dehydrator online on TradeMe. It was  NZ$54.95 and with delivery 63$. I ordered on the 2nd Jan And it finally arrived on 13th Jan. So a bit slow for delivery, even accounting for the fact the order was put on a thursday.

 It arrived in a cardboard box with polystyrene forms at base and top and the top lid was cracked in one corner, otherwise all in good shape. For photos see at end.

About the dehydrator

 The trays are quite deep, about 30mm from perforated plastic tray to top edge, so clearance between trays would be about 25mm (an inch). I'm pleased about that, I was worried they may be too shallow.
Its about 240mm deep, 300mm wide & 350mm high with all 7 trays stacked. So it will easily sit under the cupboards in the laundry.
 The top, clear lid is oversized and a bit rattly. It does not have any holes in the top so the air eases out around the edges around the perimeter.
there is the central hole on each tray that allows air to flow up from the bottom.
 The bottom is a sort of drain tray so any moisture dripping down will fall into the well. There is a raised central hat that allwos air to flow into the chamber.
  I will be heading up country shortly so will not have too much time to play with it.
As it is, I have some cabbge that I wanted to dehydrate, also an apple or 2 (although I could use those in a smothie) and an onion.
I think I'll need to do one thing at a time otherwise there is potential for cross contamination of flavours.
 I'm not sure whether to wait for feedback from seller about broken lid or go ahead with a trial.

An interesting comment is to rotate trays for even drying. I thought that was a good insight. 

Some vids on dehydrating fruits and a DIY dehydrator ( a bit like a biltong box)

DIY dehydrator, pretty cool

Suggested items for dehydration
 I need to plan to buy cheap fruit for dehydration. So currently summer, need to start to go to markets and buy fruit to test.
  Vegetables

1. Cabbage- (done)
2. Carrots- (done)
3. Tomatoes
4. Potatoes (I tried chips)
5. Mushrooms
6.  Onions (turn into powder
7.  Garlic (turn into powder) buy a big bag and dehydrate

 Fruit)

1. Apples (done-to test)
2. Pears
3. Orange &lemon Peel (for candied peel)
4. Pineapples
5. Grapes
6. Strawberries
7. Bananas 
8. Mangos (done)

Meats

1. Steak ( jerky & biltong)
2. Pork   ( jerky & biltong)
3. Chicken (link to jerky)
4. Lamb (link to jerky)
5. Mince- dehydrate for premade meals 
6. Chicken- dehydrate for premade meals

 Herbs

1. Rosemary
2. Thyme 
3. Parsley
4. Fennel? 

Maybe get coffee grinder (op shop) to grind herbs/garlic/onions etc
 
Other

1.  crackers
2. fruit leather
3. rice

 Photos of unboxing and instructions

Update on cracked lid. 14th jan. 

I've been offered 20$ refund, so actual unit was 55$ and the rest courier (about $8- tot 63$) so unit for 43$ ok with just a cracked lid. It doesn't sit as well but it doesn't affect the operation. Since this was the cheapest one that I got to test to see if worthwhile I'm happy with that outcome. 

 The information book with it is pretty limited, see below, a bit vague on times for fruit drying, still, I'll have to use to see results:

 Cracked top lid

 Instructions , only telling you how to do beef jerky and vague  suggestions for fruit , vegertables and nuts. 

Vacuum sealed food

One of the "hacks" I do is to use a straw to draw out the air in a bag before I freeze some food.
This reduces freezer burn that occurs when air is present.
Its a bit crude, and I've been considering getting a vacuum sealer that removes all the air. I do resent paying for packaging , and with the vacuum sealer you buy consumable bags.

I don't want to do that

I like the above video and their experimentation method, also the one below too:

I'e been thinking of ways to preserve food so will think about purchasing a vacuum sealer.
An alternartive video of the one above, a lovely presentation:

So 1 jan 2020 I bought a vacuum sealer, still trying to get my head around it. It is one from the Warehouse for 69$. Definitely bottom of the line.
I'm trying to use it with normal polythene bags, so far with mixed success. I'm sort of getting the vacuum, sort of getting the seal but the bag is too thin so seal melts. Have tried using the ziplock and put it under the first seal (where I have something poking through to help get vacuum

 First time with biltong, not a great success, the bags are thin, so you need to put half of ziplock cutoff piece under the element, then it seals and doesn't melt through the bag. As part of the ziplock is through the seal it still needs a 2nd seal. The 2nd seal melts as well.

 This time I used the 2 parts of the ziplock, one on each of the seals to thicken the plastic so it did not melt through. That works.
I tried using tissue paper (Handy Towel) to act as gap for vacuum but that didn't work, the ziplock ridge did.  So have to use part of ziplock inside bag to get air out
Maybe another test would be to fold over the top seal , so there is 4 layers of plastic, that might make it thick enough not to melt and make a good seal.
Anyway, with ziplock sides under it works. Chillis nicely vacuumed.

I did have trouble to begin with trying to break the vacuum and kept on pulling out the top seal. I need to press the side buttons to release the seal.
Also a comment in the pamphlet that came with the vacuum sealer was using it to seal up Chippy bags after opening. I tried that out and it works fine. A good suggestion. This is just the seal, so still some air in the bag.

I got this for a few reasons, I want to start doing some dehydration of fruit, veges and meats and also to see about marinades for some meats. Sealing in a bag may be a good way to have pre-prepped foods, and if the vacuum bags seal them longer then this is a good way to make use of cheap produce.
 Also, the biltong/Jerky an go mouldy, so having it vacuum sealed preserves it for longer.
Seals arn't that great, it doesn't seem to get to full vacuum and go to seal.

Different vacuum sealer

 I returned this vacuum sealer as it wouldn't maintain the seal on the 3rd Jan.
I then went and got the Food Saver Sunbeam with attachment one with my True Reward points. I had 177 of them, so noly need to pay $23 for the unit.
That has an attachment so you can seal bags in a different way with an attachment.
This video shows a method of sealing a bag inside a bag. It sort of works so far.

I tried the above process on some biscotti that I have in Ziplock bags and it worked, but I didn't thermally seal the bags after and the ziplock did not maintain the vacuum seal that I originally maintained.
I need to try to do vacuum then thermal seal, rather than relying on ziplock for it.

Biltong Sealing with straw

I tried the attachment and the method above to vacuum seal the biltong. I did the beef in the method above but it never got a great vacuum as the creasing of the outer bag closed off the inner bag before a solid vacuum got going. I tried a number of times but couldn't get it to quite work, I got a partial one, and ith the heat seal below the zip lock it kept a good seal. It was particularly bad on curved bits of meat that folded in on themselves, there was a well of air.
So I went back to the straw and suck method with the ziplock bags and found I got a much better seal, then I used the thermal sealer and that worked fine.
The thermal sealer works extremely well on this vacuum sealer compared to the cheap one. You get a good solid, consistent seal on the zip bags, so that is of excellent value if it holds the seal on the other 3 sides.
So, although the in bag vac seal with attachments is a good idea, the method doesn't quite work.
I think I have to try the shower plastic sponge method again.
When using the proper bags (the roll cut to length) I had to have several attempts before I got the seal right ( I was trying with the minimum length of roll). The vacuum gets louder when its working, but just maintains an even frequency if it doesn't.

So I need to try the other methods.
I'm very hapy with the thermal sealer bar. That is of great value. 


Idea of mushrooms for soup. Get when cheap and freeze (maybe use dehydrator

Biltong Cures 1, 2 & 3

Biltong 1st Try

This may be worth a bit of a try too, a different taste as its air dried rather than slow heat cooked. So apparently tastes more like prucetto rather than jerky.
This looks like a biltong drier might be an interesting project.
After cutting upI've got a glass dish with some brown malt vinegar in it, based on this video:

I bought a Beef Roast (about  900g ) and I've got it in the freezer at the moment, which will hopefully make it easier to cut into standard slices.
I soaked the steaks in brown vinegar for 3 hours after slicing long strips about 10mm wide

I've modified a box to allow me to suspend the meat, but am still thinking about the rub at the moment.
I'm using wire across the box, and to stop the hooks slipping have knotted paper clips at intervals. 

I went to the Warehouse and bought a cheap USB fan, there was a $5 fan and an $8 fan. I chose the latter as it had 3 speeds, so possibly could be more flexible.

 

For the rub recipe I didn't have any corriander seeds so used what I had in the Herb box but sort of based it on this wiki page recipe.

I used plastic paper clips to suspend the meat (because its been soaking in vinegar, metal can react with the vinegar)

 

 I found some foil flex duct that I'm using to connect the fan to the box at low level and have an old wool jersey held over the top with elastic bands around the box to allow the air to flow out of the top.
Because the fan can make a bit of a noise I'm setting it up in the utility room and closing the door.

 It needs to run for 4 days to dry out the meat.
So, all setup at the moment, I don't have a heat source in the box, and I'll see how that goes.

Process

Monday 23rd Dec. Next day after setting up. The fan cuts out a bit, I suppose for a 48 fan its not designed to run continuously, or maybe the resistance is a bit too much. I check it if i'm going past and re-set the fan if its stopped. It seems to be only running on one setting now, rather than the 3.
The room definitely smells quite vinegary. So some drying must be taking place.

Thusday, testing

 I was doing a bit of a read on storing biltong, and it said try as you go. So today I unhooked a piece of meat and sliced it, it did tasste a bit like Prosciutto or Jamon. I trimmed the fat off as I didn't like the taste of that, then re-hung it.

So I should start getting it out soon.  I weighed it, it was 398g, and the roast was 899g when I bought that (although I did cut a bit of fat off the back of it) so at least 50% water removed.

Also, a more lean cut of meat might be best. I wonder about Ham, or Pork, like the Spanish and Italians ?

So, I'll bag some and use the straw and remove the air and put it in the fridge, and some in the freezer. I'll cut the fat off first though.

Curing & Storing both Jerky & Biltong

Apparently mould can start growing after about day 5-6, epending on humidity. So that is why dry time about 4 days for Biltong, so that it doesn't start growing mould.
I put the beref jerky into bags, it was a bit moist, but I used a straw to suck out the air and left it in a cupboard. I'd done the drying on the 23rd, today the 26th and there was a bit of while on the outside of one of the bags. I think air had slowly got into the packet.
So, lesson, meat, moist, mould.
I think I should put some tissue paper in to absorb some of the moisture ( some have the salt crystal bags) and also put into the fridge.
They say the flavour changes if you put into the freezer, so I'll need to test some of the pieces doing that, to test flavour change, bith the Jerky and the Biltong.

Review

I love the taste of the Biltong, a real meat taste like Spanish or Italian cured ham, and quite chewy. I've got to make more as I'm getting through it pretty quickly.

2nd Try Beef & Pork

30th Dec 2019

This time I want to do both Beef & Pork. I'm interested to see if there is a distinctive pork flavour. I got some Rump Steak at 15.49/kg, about 1.5kg before fat trimmed off and smaller bits used for Fried rice meal. 
 Pork Shoulder at 8.99/kg with bone in and skin on. So by the time I skinned the fat off and took the bones out it was only 1.4kg (Original cost about 16.50$, so near 2kg).  I used the skin to make crackling.
I soaked in vinegar, this time steak with malt and Pork with white vinegar (I had a full litre bottle of that). I marinated both for about 3 hours in the vinegar.
Then used spices after draining off vinegar.
I set meat in spices for an hour.
Then I put the spices on. For both I used:
2 heaped Tablespoons of Brown Sugar
1 Tbspn Baking Soda
1 Tbspn Black ground pepper
1 Tbspn Pink Salt
1 Tbspn Garlic Pepper
2-3 Tbspn Chilli Flakes

After draining vinegar and adding spices I let meat sit in dishes, but the fluid leached out from the vinegar, so the spices were pretty minimal on the surface.
 Maybe a further roll in dry spices before being hung may be another option to make sure the chilli and pepper stick to the outside.
I added more lines and paperclips to the box .
Also found some muislin, so used that on the top of the box instead of the jumper (a bit more sophisticated).
So, about 1.8kg of meat airing
I thought this chaps video was pretty good. I may even have to get some corriander seeds (even though I really dislike Corriander).

 I had to go and purchase another fan as the other one didn't stay on but kept on cutting out. So I bought the $5 one from the Warehouse which is 150mm dia instead of just over 100mm Dia.  I removed the 100mm dia flex and cut the hole bigger into the box at the bottom. I also used muslin at the top. I had to tape over the wire ends holding the suspended biltong as it was catching the muslin.
A lot more open at the top compared to the jumper.

I think I'll have to clear the freezer so that I can get cheap meat when its on special to store to do batch biltong.
 This vid is good for layering spices on meat before dehydration:

So, 2nd time I had some quite thick pieces of pork, so I left it drying for 6 days. I have it out on the bench now ready to cut up and seal in bags.
I bought a vacuum sealer so that I could seal the biltong to give it a lobnger life.I still have not got a good way to keep a vacuum seal on standard ziplock bags as the seal leaks a bit.

Final Weights 5th Jan 2020

After 6 days drying there  is 614g of Beef Biltong and 643g Pork biltong. I gave a small piece of the Beef Biltong to someone before final weigh in so the Beef would have been higher.
So now I need to vacuum seal them up.
The pork looks quite pale and I need to do a few taste tests on it.
I have bought some corriander seeds to try for the next batch, and I'm also trying the curing of a pork shoulder, but that will take a month.
I have also ordered a dehydrator too, so looking forward to trying that out, with the biltong as well as the jerky processes.
I used the straw to get vacuum in bags then used heat sealer on vacuum sealer and put in fridge in vegitable drawer.

Some I sent off to Karl & Zoe to try. Zoe can't have malt vinegar as its not gluten free but white vinegar is, so the Beef isn't gluten free but the pork is. Their ones were sealed properly with the fancy bags, mine are using ziplock bags with a vacuum thermal seal above the ziplock.

Tasting 8 jan 2020

I gave Sky some beef and some pork and he enjoyed it. I then tried a THICK porrk piece, about 25mm after drying, but the middle was still quite moist, it didn't have as much taste, so a bit dissapointing.  A little bland. So thick is not good, better thinner so all the herbs penetrate more and it dries out more.

3rd Try Pork

I went to Pak'n'Save and got some pork shoulder chops on special. Total weight 1.66kg and after trimming alll the fat and bone off I was left with 1.09kg of meat for biltong.

I have this soaking in white vinegar at the moment.
I am also using the air fryer to render the fat for lard for cooking and also to get pork crackling from the skin. I've taken the crackling out to cool and then I'm going to cut the fat off so that it can render better and also only have crackling with minimal fat attached.
I got quite a lot of dripping out this time, I also leave the bones in so they can add a bit of flavour. Not sure if I should keep them for a stock. Maybe another time. Needs a bit more research, see Pork stock. This says best roasted before, so that is good. I'll keep them.

This time I want to do the soak in salt/sugar in a container in the fridge to draw out the liquid. This sits for 1 to 1 1/2 hours to dry out the meat . After use the vinegar from previous soaking to rinse off the salt.
Put somewhere to dry, maybe some old T shirts or rags (so can use again) and then while still moist add pepper, corriander seeds and chilli powder to outside and hang to dry.

I think this method may dry out the meat more quickly and also allow  for the corriander seeds, pepper and chilli to stick to the outside for the drying process. 

After 1 hour I took salt/sugar off with vinegar and squeezed the meat to get excess water out, then rolled the meat into the 3 spices and hung in the biltong box. Now to cure.
The smell is not as vinegary in the room as I only soaked the meat in the vinegar for 1 hour. I'll be interested to see what the flavour is like.

9 jan 2020

Packing today, weight 522g , so its lost half its moisture approx.
Its only a couple of days but some parts are dry. I have some quite straggly bits, so cut an end off one and it was really really salty. So maybe my rincing technique was not that good.
I'll go bAck to trying the 3 hour vinegar instead. I prefer that to the taste of salt.

Ground Beef Jerky

While doing shopping I went to the Jerky area and looked at the flavours and prices. There were also some little sticks that looked neatly formed so I thought mince Jerky.
As it was day after boxing day I thought there moght be some specialds in the meat section and ended up buying some premium beef mince for half price. So I thought I'd try making Ground Beef Jerky with that.

Ingredients:
340 g Premium mince
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon Ground pepper
1/2 teaspooon paprica
1 Tablespoon of Soy Sauce
! teaspoon Garlic pepper powder
1 1/2 teaspoons of chilli flakes

Weight before drying 360g approx

Air Dryer set to 80 deg C (lowest setting).

I mixed up all the ingredients then put it in freezer, spread out into a box shape with baking paper above and below for about 20 min, so I could cut it more easily and still keep the shape.
In a lot of the videos they have a jerky former, but I decided I'd have it thicker,  although thinking of it, that will be slower to dry out. They are about 15mm square

They didn't quite fit into the air fryer so I had to curl them around a bit for the last ones.

End comment

They look like dog doings, and don't look very appetising.
Actually the flavour is quite mild as I didn't want it really salty like the Beef Jerky I made.
Overall,. a bit saw dusty. Too dry.
Maybe the shape was not the best, too thick. Also it looked very black compared to the ones in the shop I saw.I made them thick so that all of the mix would fit into the air fryer. On reflection, maybe a few batches of thinner slices would have been better.
If I try it again that is what I will do.
Also sprincle peeper and Chilli over it at end and roll that into surface.
It took a long long time to dry out being so thick, doing thinner ones in batches may end up being quicker.
It is edible, far more so than the salty Jerky, but definitely not as good as the biltong, I'm really enjoying that.

English muffins

I got a grill sandwich press and a lot of pictures show English muffins being toasted in them. I thought I haven't tried those for a while, so I should try and make them.

  A video with only 1 hour rise and a later 30 min rise

Ingredients you'll need:
1 tablespoon (9g) active dry yeast
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (139g) water
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (139g) whole milk
4 cups (480g) bread flour
1 tablespoon (13g) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon (6g) fine sea salt
2 tablespoons (28g) gently melted butter, or canola oil

 This one looks interesting too:

 This is the recipe I used, in the video they are nice and thick:
Makes 8-9 pieces, Ingredients: ​

 ​ 350g (3 cups) all-purpose flour I'll use Strong White flour next time
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
100g (1/2 cup) warmed milk (not boiling)
100g (1/2 cup) warmed water (not boiling)
2 tbsp unsalted butter (or oil)
5g (1 1/2 tsp) dry yeast- TRY 2tsp f yeast next time


Mix ingredients, rest for 1 hour. Roll out about 10-15mm thk and cut into pieces  and let rest on tray for 30 min. On hot element with butter on low heat 3-5 min each side then bake in oven for 8 min (because they are thick so need to bake the middle)  at 180 deg C). I'll try 5 min in air fryer.

2nd time not so successful

I ran out of these, they are great for breakfast and save on my baking normal bread all the time.
This time it was not as succesful. I didn't seem to get any rise out of the dough.
 I had it on for 1 1/2 hours, then when rolled out for another 30 min, I did about 45 min, still no rise.
I used standard flour.
This was a Countdown package, I had some disappointment with one of their pastry sheets pack before, so I think next time I'll use strong white flour instead, that always seems to rise quite well.
The 5g is just over 1 teaspoon, I also used a different yeast, so maybe that was not so great.
Also the water/milk mix may not have been warm enough.

I was so pleased with my last attempt that this time seemed like a disaster. 

3rd timepart way between other 2

I'm really liking the Muffin breakfast. So I need another batch. I let them rise for 2 hours, and after cutting for 1 hour instead of 30 min. The rise wasn't that great.
 I used Strong flour, and heated milk/water. I also checked the yeast was active (I waited 10 min after adding it to milk/water/butter mix) and that was OK too. Maybe 2tsp of Yeast next time

Grill Sandwich Press

I've been thinking about getting one of these for a while. Zoe made me a toasted sandwich when I was up at her place, and it's a lot more moist than one made in an oven grill which dries out the bread as it toasts.  When married we used to have a sandwich maker, with the indented triangular shapes and have mushroom toasted sandwiches.
I was in Brisco's and looked at a number of types and finally found the sunbeam one on special at $60. It had a flat bottom and a corrugated top. Irt also had a bit more weight to it, unlike the zip one which was a bit lightweight and plastically. It is also 1800w so has a bit of grunt to it.
I wanted something that was a bit versatile, would act as a grill for meat as well as a sandwich maker.
So I bought it as a christmas present for myself. There were ones in the warehouse for 45$ but very plasticky, and the devices that I've bought to date I've used a lot.
As I make my own bread I wanted something that did not have a regular profile, so I could have any shape in it.
I thought about Toasted Sandwiches, Burgers, and saw the English muffins  on an image and thouught of a Breakfast muffin (I'll now have to make some)
So looking on the web, one thing that leaped out at me was making Quesadillas on it. What a great idea, see the vid below:

Shawarma 

I've also got some pita bread I just got out of the freezer for some hummus and found some cooked lamb, so I think iIll try making a lamb kebab in pita bread.
Onion, grated carrot, tomato, frozen lambheated on grill, hummus and the pita bread warmed in Grill so that it cuts to open.
So , a homemade and cooked Shawarma, absolutely delicious.

Ham & Cheese in Pita bread with Soy Sauce.

This is somrthing that I like, although it can be a bit salty with the soy sauce.
I'll have to try this out too.

End comment

So far, only the Shawarma (Donner Kebab) but it heated the pita bread and also cooked the lamb.
This particular model does not have a drain so the fat sits in the bottom and needs to be wiped out. Not really an issue as having the fat there allows the meat to cook in it to brown better. With the lid on it doesn't spit as much.

Steak sandwiches 5 jan 2020

 I've tried some steak sandwiches, but basically it just squashes the bread. I can't quite see the sense of it so far.  Ok, its warm, but the ciabatta bread breaks up and flattens.
I need to think about this a bit more

Chicken Drumsticks/Wings & Scallion Pancakes

Chicken Drumsticks

 I'd made some chicken drumsticks right at the beginning, as the YT vids seem to say that was the bestest thing for the Air fryer, but I made some and although the coating was tasty the chicken itself was pretty bland.

What is making me revisit this is the Air Fryer test video above with Chicking wings. In the shops the Chicken wings are more expensive than drumsticks, and as I've just bought some drumsticks I wanted to try out the recipe and will do so on them.
In the above video it references a Chef John Food Wishes video with uses Baking soda for crisping up ther chicken skin, so I'll try that, here is that video:

So, I'm going to try doing drumsticks again, but mabe the glaze should be also in a side dipping sauce too,. in case part of the chicken is bland, so you can dip into it to add some flavour.
First off, thaw the Chicken drum sticks, which is what I'm doing at the moment.  Link to recipe here

Ingredients for 4 portions:

2 1/2 pounds chicken wing sections

1 tbsp kosher salt  (TRY HALVING NEXT TIME- VERY SALTY IN CHICKEN WINGS)

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp smoked paprika

2 tbsp baking powder (aluminum free)

- Coat wings, and bake at 425 F., turning every 15-20 minutes, until they are browned and crispy. Total cooking time will be about 1 hour, but that depends on the size and temperature of your wings.

For the Honey Sriracha glaze:

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup Sriracha

1 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar

1/4 tsp sesame oil

sesame seeds to garnish

I put them on a slow heat to begin with, I wanted to make sure that the chicken was cooked through, then turned and low heat again, then on high heat. I ended up putting them in the fridge as I'd had the pancakes and a hamburger. After warming ad then cooking again I mixed the 4 chicken drumsticks in the sauce as per the Food Wishes video with Honey & Scirachi and mixed the chicken in with a sprinkling of sesame seeds over.

Very yummy and filling, but the sauce was a bit sweet from the honeuy, I think I'd try another sauce, maybe a buffelo type one next time, something with a hint of lemon maybe.
Definitely more flavoursome. With the sauce in the bowl you can always dip the bland chicken bits in to add more flavour.
Definitely worth another go. And a good cheap meal. Would go well with celery stick and carrot sticks.

Chicken Wings

 I found some chicken wings at Pak'n'Save for a good price so decided to give them a crack. After cutting up the wings, the very tips I've kept separate to make a broth from later.
There were so many that I had to do them in 3 batches in the air fryer. After the last batch I threw all of them in to heat them all up.

 I follwed the Food Wishes recipe for the sause. Quite hot. I may try a lemony one another time.Really filling, there were a lot of them. They were definitely more flavoursome than the drumsticks as amount of sauce per wing portion was a lot more so the chicken meat did not taste bland, also the amount of skin per portion too.

I did wake up through the night very thirsty after having them. A smaller portion would not have had such an effect.
There wasn't a massive amount of salt, so next time try halving the amount of salt, also not sure if the baking powder also created that thirstiness too. Maybe try with less salt and see if there is the same effect.
A lemony flavour( like the  Elephant & Castle ones in Dublin) would be worth a try.
Definitely moorish. I'd try again, but need Chicken Wings to be a good price. Maybe buy 5kg of wings and freeze them, but no room in the freezer at the moment. I may have to toss some of the things at the bottom like the unsalted bread.

Scallion pancakes

I've tried the shortcut recipe below, and a bit dissapointing, but I can see the idea of them.

 I think you need the dipping sauce, so follow this link for one here.
I followed the process, and maybe pressed down too much as it was a bit flat. The Scallion flavour was nice, but they were pretty thin. I'll try again but not press on them, see if they inflate.

Beef Jerky & Air Fryer

Beef jerky

My son in law Karl makes beef jerky. I'd never really bothered with it before, it looks lika a bit of shoe leather and seeing people eat it, it looks like they are eating shoe leather.
He created a few different batches and has very kindly given them to me, and they dissapear very quickly, they are very morish.  The saltiness makes you drink more beer, so that is good. And a good protien snack.
If I was in a shop I wouldn't buy them as they are small packetsand expensive and I'd rather have a packet of chips or even pork crackling instead.
I was looking at some snacks I could make with an air fryer and on one video they made beef jerky. So I thought i'd give it a try.
I like this chaps videos and in this one he makes Beef Jerky as he test drives an air fryer. 

His results wern't that great so I looked at a few more.
It seemed to me that getting the beef cut and slicing were important. Obvious really, better ingredients usually give you better results.
The slicing into regular widths was a concern as my cutting can be a bit eratic.
Then I thought, Beef Snitzel!!! I had some in the freezer and it is already sliced very thinly, so all I had to do was cut a bit of the fat off it. The fat does taste different than the meat.
So I thawed the meat and have just sliced it up.
Of the spices I do like the hot spicy ones so I thought, as this is my first try, I'd bung in a lot of the basic ingredients and see how it turns out. If it works then I'll start to do a bit more research and be a bit more scientific about it. Also maybe get some tips from Karl.
So, I've chucked a bit of Soy Sauce, brown sugar, Sarachi, Smoked paprica, Garlic salt, Lee Perin, pepper, chilli flakes and apple vinegar into a container and have put the strips into the mix to soak overnight in the fridge.

So phase 1 done.
I like the beef snitzel cut as they are quick to cook and make good Beef Stroganoff, a lovely hearty winter meal. In my budget concious state, it is expensive, so I only buty it when its on special and freeze a few batches.
Karl says dry out at 70 dec C but Air fryer only goes down to 80 deg C, so I'll do on that setting. The other video says 30 minutes, I'll start with that too.

Drying

I used an 80 deg C setting and  hung the meat on a ring I had, I wasa able to get all the pieces in. I set it for 30 minutes and after 20 min they were still pretty moit, so I've added another 30 minutes to the timer.

 

The drying process, I ramped it up to 100 Deg C after 60 min and ran that for about another 30 mins. Some parts were quite descicated, others still moist.

 After picking a couple of bits out I ended up with about 175 g of Jerky, sop put into 3 servings of 50g and one of 25g. Not such a lot for such a process. 

Very salty and a bit sweet, and not that hot or peppery but tasty, but I think thats the salt. I've got the 25g pack to have with the beer tonight. 

I kept the left over juices for another marinade but I may toss it as the blood in the meat may not be too good. 

 I think I'd try again, but I need a better recipe for the mix as its a bit too salty and sweet, whereas I like the pepper and chilli flavour. 

Curing & Storing both Jerky & Biltong

Apparently mould can start growing after about day 5-6, epending on humidity. So that is why dry time about 4 days for Biltong, so that it doesn't start growing mould.
I put the beref jerky into bags, it was a bit moist, but I used a straw to suck out the air and left it in a cupboard. I'd done the drying on the 23rd, today the 26th and there was a bit of while on the outside of one of the bags. I think air had slowly got into the packet.
So, lesson, meat, moist, mould.
I think I should put some tissue paper in to absorb some of the moisture ( some have the salt crystal bags) and also put into the fridge.
They say the flavour changes if you put into the freezer, so I'll need to test some of the pieces doing that, to test flavour change, bith the Jerky and the Biltong.

Mince jerky? Worth a crack Nigel

This looks a bit wierd but may be worth a test, using mince and then rolling and drying:

Biscotti.

I'm thinking of a couple of home-made things I can give as presents for Xmas.
The Candied orange Peels are good, and I saw a couple of YT videos on Biscotti's. I thought that was a nice idea, I need to get some brown sugar and almonds, and see if that is a goer.

The first video has fruit in it, and it looks pretty good, the 2nd has just almonds. 

  BISCOTTI with NUTS & DRIED FRUIT

 4 extra large Eggs 

1 cup Sugar (white) 

1 cup Brown Sugar 

6 oz Butter (1½ sticks) 

1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract 

1 Lemon (Juice & Zest) 

1 Tbsp Baking Powder 

1 tsp Baking Soda 

4½ - 5 cups All Purpose Flour 

1 cup Sliced Almonds

 1 cup chopped Mixed Dried Fruit (Figs, Dates, Raisins)

I've got to maybe look at some packaging for the gift wrapping too

This one has great presentation:

The results

So, after baking them and putting them in bags I bought some poly bags that are seal-able. I coated them in chocolate (milk and white) and dipped them in ground nuts, Then bagged them and used straw to suck air out of them.
 Next time, I think I'd make thinner than before as they are a bit big to bite into, it's a biscuit, so should be thinner. A sharp knife to slice.

 I also did the orange peel double dips (milk choc one end & white choc the other).

So all in air tight bags and ready for Christmas as gifts.