Harvesting Mushrooms

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Photo: Tetiana Vitsenko / Rusmediabank.ru

You need to be especially careful about mushroom harvesting. The golden rule is to collect and consume only those mushrooms that you know and have no doubt about.

According to the ripening period, all mushrooms can be divided into spring (lines, morels) and summer-autumn (boletus, boletus, boletus, chanterelles, mushrooms, mushrooms, boletus, russula, etc.).

Mushrooms can be salted, pickled, dried.

Cold salting

In this way, as a rule, milk mushrooms, mushrooms, volushki are harvested. It is known that these types of mushrooms are bitter. Therefore, before salting them, they need to be soaked. In order for all the bitterness from the mushrooms to go away, it takes a week to soak the mushrooms, changing the water daily. After that, place the mushrooms tightly in a salting dish (pan or barrel), sprinkle with salt and spices (garlic, pepper, bay leaf). Take salt at the rate of 1 kg of mushrooms 1, 5 tablespoons. Be sure to place oppression on top. The mushrooms will be salted for about five to six weeks. Store them in a cool place.

Hot salting

It differs from the cold one in that the mushrooms must first be boiled with the addition of salt and spices. After the mushrooms are cooked, put them in a colander (pour the liquid into a saucepan, it will still be needed) and let cool. Then fold tightly into a salting dish. Sprinkle with salt (for 1 kg of mushrooms - 1 tablespoon). On top, you can put a few horseradish leaves, well washed. Pour the juice left over after boiling over the mushrooms so that the mushrooms are completely covered. Place oppression on top. Can be stored in a cool place for several months.

Pickling

As a rule, mushrooms such as chanterelles, honey mushrooms, aspen mushrooms, boletus, etc. are pickled. Pre-boil the mushrooms without adding salt. Then put the mushrooms in a colander and let them cool. While the mushrooms are cooling, prepare the marinade. For 1 liter of liquid, you will need 4 tsp. salt, 2 tbsp. sugar, a couple of cloves of garlic, pepper and bay leaf to taste. Whoever loves can add a carnation. Boil the marinade, add 2 tsp at the end of cooking. vinegar essence. Arrange the mushrooms in jars, pour the marinade over. Store in a cool place.

Freezing

Boletus mushrooms are best suited for freezing. It is enough to sort them out, clean and rinse them. Fold in a bag and freeze.

If other mushrooms were chosen for freezing, then in addition to being sorted out, peeling and washing, they should also be boiled or soaked (depending on the type of mushrooms). And only then can they be frozen.

Drying

Drying is considered the best way to harvest the mushroom. Thus, all the taste and nutritional qualities of the product are preserved. Boletus mushrooms are best suited for this. But besides them, you can dry boletus boletus, boletus, boletus, mushrooms. It is better not to dry old mushrooms - they may contain toxins.

It should be remembered that underdried mushrooms can quickly become moldy, and overdried ones become very hard, crumble strongly and hardly get soaked in water. That is why it is very important to determine when the drying ends. Properly dried mushrooms break easily, but do not crumble, they bend a little.

For drying, mushrooms must be carefully sorted out and cleaned of debris, but not washed!

Small porcini mushrooms can be dried whole without separating the caps from the legs.

Prepared mushrooms should be strung on threads or laid on braids. Mushroom binding, like mushrooms individually, should not come into contact with each other. Mushrooms are dried in the oven, in the sun, in the oven (at a temperature of 50-75 ° C). You need to start drying mushrooms at a minimum temperature of 50 ° C, gradually increasing it. To prevent the mushrooms from steaming, you need to keep the oven door a little ajar - this way fresh air will constantly flow.

Useful Tips

* It is better not to store fresh mushrooms longer than 2-3 hours, becausethey are a good environment for the development of microorganisms. If mushrooms are harvested in rainy weather, they deteriorate faster.

* You need to know that all mushrooms, except for boletus, turn black during the drying process. Hence the second name for boletus is porcini mushroom.

* Dried mushrooms are best kept in a linen bag, away from foods that contain moisture. If dry mushrooms are still damp during storage, then they should be dried again, otherwise mold may form on them and they will deteriorate.

* It should be remembered that dry mushrooms very easily absorb foreign odors. Therefore, they should not be stored next to strongly smelling foods and substances.

* To prevent mushrooms from losing color during cooking, you can add a little citric acid to the water.

* Mushrooms are ready if they have sunk to the bottom during cooking and the brine (or marinade) has become lighter.

* If you put green sprigs of black currant when preserving mushrooms, then the mushrooms will acquire a pleasant aroma. Cherry and oak leaves will make the mushrooms crispy and strong.