Ingredients
- 5 cups water
- 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 inch (12 mm) of dehydrated chilli pepper, crumbled
- 1 whole clove, crushed
- 1 teaspoon cornflour
- 1/2 cup dehydrated shredded beetroot
- 1/2 cup dehydrated shredded carrots
- 1/2 cup dehydrated shredded apples
- 1/2 cup dehydrated shredded cabbage
Instructions
- Crumble the chilli and crush the clove before anything gets wet. Whole spices sit in liquid and give up very little; broken ones release into vinegar within minutes.
- Stir the water, vinegar, sugar, chilli and clove together in a wide pan until you cannot feel any sugar on the base. Undissolved sugar sinks and catches the moment the heat goes on.
- Slake the cornflour in a spoonful of the cold liquid before it joins the rest. Tipped in dry it seizes into lumps that no amount of stirring will break apart.
- Add the beetroot, carrot, apple and cabbage and stir once. Dried shreds float at first and sink as they take on liquid, which is a useful running check on how far along they are.
- Cover the pan, bring it to the boil, then drop the heat right down and leave it to simmer for two hours. Everything here was dried hard, and the apple in particular takes that long to stop being chewy.
- Look at the liquid level every so often and top it up with hot water if the shreds are sitting proud of it. Anything above the surface dries out again instead of softening.
- Serve it hot alongside something rich. It keeps three days in the fridge and the colour deepens overnight, but do not freeze it — the cabbage collapses to mush.
Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 292 kcal | 83 kcal |
| Protein | 4 g | 1.1 g |
| Fat | 0.7 g | 0.2 g |
| saturated | 0.1 g | 0 g |
| Carbohydrate | 61 g | 17.3 g |
| sugars | 55.2 g | 15.7 g |
| Fibre | 10.1 g | 2.9 g |
| Sodium | 173 mg | 49 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
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