In search of the perfect macaroni and cheese: Dried Persimmons

I have never been the biggest fan of persimmons on their own (see this post for my first experiment with persimmons), but love persimmon cookies. During a socially distanced Tech volunteer/former staff get together at the house of the lovely volunteer Sharon, we got to talking about the awesome tree we were gathered around in her backyard. It turned out it was a hachiya persimmon tree, and Sharon said that she always had too many persimmons, so we could help ourselves when they were ripe in the Fall. Come November, Sharon let us know that the persimmons were ready to pick and Scott and I went over and had a lot of fun picking persimmons to our hearts' content. Of course, that meant I had a lot of persimmons to deal with, so I thought I'd try a new recipe. I knew that I had loved dried persimmons when I randomly came across them at a grocery store years ago, so decided to try breaking out my food dehydrator for the first time and drying persimmons. Here is the recipe I followed:

Dried Persimmons (okay, I need to remember to plate my final produce better for my blog pictures)

Dried persimmons (from https://www.mountainfeed.com/blogs/learn/101744903-dried-persimmons-an-easy-winter-snack)

Ingredients:

Persimmons (duh!)

Procedure:

1) Wash and slice the persimmons. Fuyu or Hachiya will both make delicious dehydrated slices; if using Hachiya, choose fruits that are fully orange but not as ripe as you would choose for fresh eating; they need to be firm enough to slice. The astringency that is unpleasant to taste in an unripe fruit disappears during the dehydration process.

Slice the persimmons about 1/8" thick. Since persimmons have no core to speak of, you can slice all the way through the center, and enjoy the whole fruit! There is a lovely star shape at the center of each persimmon.

2) Dehydate. Dehydrate on screens in the dehydrator, at about 135 degrees, until the slices are dry, slightly tacky to the touch but not sticky. This should take around 6-8 hours.

3) Store and Enjoy. Store the slices in mason jars, where they will keep for 6 months or more.

Persimmons in the dehydator

Boy, was this easy! It really makes me question why I've waited so long to use the dehydator. This was also a really good first fruit to dehydrate, as other than removing the top stem, there wasn't any other processing to do (e.g., peeling, removing seeds, etc.) Use the food processor to slice them into thin pieces (a mandoline would have been perfect for this, but I'm not quite sure where mine is) and put them on the trays. My dehydrator didn't have precise temperature settings, but medium seems to be the equivalent of 135. Six hours seemed to be perfect every single time. If I remembered it, I tried to rotate the trays as the ones on the bottom dried quicker than the ones on the top (they're closer to the heating element). Also, I did find out that, unlike what the above recipe says, it's not quite true that the astrigency dissapears when you dry the persimmons. It's still there, but much milder. However, if you're at all sensitive to this astringency, I would not recommend using Hachiya persimmons. Use fuyu (the tomato shaped ones) instead. Poor Scott could not eat these slices without feeling pretty much instantaneously dry mouthed. I felt so bad for him that I went out and bought fuyu persimmons so he could enjoy dried persimmons as well.