Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 473 kcal | 134 kcal |
| Protein | 36.5 g | 10.4 g |
| Fat | 24.3 g | 6.9 g |
| saturated | 10.9 g | 3.1 g |
| Carbohydrate | 22.1 g | 6.3 g |
| sugars | 3.7 g | 1.1 g |
| Fibre | 3.4 g | 1 g |
| Sodium | 1370 mg | 389 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 800 grams eggs (8-9 eggs)
- 800 grams potatoes
- 400 g diced ham or Canadian bacon, precooked
- 200 grams diced green capsicums
- 1 3/4 tablespoons mustard
- 1 3/4 tablespoons chives, dried
- 7/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 200 grams cheese (your preference) cut into small cubes. *Note: the softer the cheese the longer it will take to dehydrate as it will have a larger moisture content*
Instructions
- The cheese is the variable in this one. A hard, aged cheese has little water and a lot of fat; a soft one has plenty of both, and it will still be greasy on the tray when everything else is finished. Firmer is easier.
- Steam the potatoes whole and unpeeled for about fifteen minutes, then chill them in iced water so they hold their shape.
- Peel and coarsely grate them once cold — you are after roughly two thirds of the raw weight.
- Beat the precooked ham with a kitchen mallet until it shreds. Shredded ham disperses through the egg; diced ham sits in it as wet lumps that each take their own time to dry.
- Set the oven at 177 °C. Line a dish roughly 30.5 cm across and 22.9 cm deep with baking paper.
- Whisk the eggs and fold in the potato, ham, green pepper, chives, mustard, salt and pepper — but keep the cheese out. It does not belong in the bake.
- Level the mixture into the corners, bake it for thirty minutes on the centre shelf, then turn the oven off and leave it inside for ten more.
- Cool it on a rack, peel the paper off, and cut it on a board into cubes of about 13 mm by scoring columns and then rows.
- Spread the cubes on a mesh tray with space between them, and put the cubed cheese on a lined tray of its own.
- Dehydrate both at 63 °C for 7 hours. Check the cheese every few hours and blot the oil it releases with paper towel — oil left on the surface is what makes cheese powder go rancid.
- The omelet cubes are done when a halved one is matt all the way through, and the cheese when a piece shatters rather than squashes.
- Grind the cooled cheese to a powder in a coffee grinder or blender. It has to be cold first: warm cheese smears the blades instead of breaking up.
- Pack the cubes and the cheese powder separately into Mylar with oxygen absorbers, and add the cheese back at the table rather than in the bag.
- To serve, soak the bites in a pot for five minutes, boil for one, and rest them in a cosy for fifteen — or use a thermos of boiling water and wait between twenty minutes and an hour. Stir the cheese through at the end.
