Mushrooms! How to dry, marinate, fry and boil mushrooms?
If someone is pleased with the autumn rains, then these are definitely mushroom lovers. What specimens to collect, how to pickle them and how to dry them?
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Mushrooms, like no other fruit of the forest, cause many mixed feelings. On the one hand, they are fascinating and varied, and collecting them is sometimes as exciting as looking for the Holy Grail. When added to dishes, they give it a fifth flavor - umami. They are associated with traditional Christmas and grandmother's kitchens, where mushrooms were dried on strings hung over the stove. For others, picking mushrooms is like Russian roulette in which you don't know if you'll find something to eat or say goodbye to life, and the mushrooms themselves are simply hard to digest and have no nutritional value.
However, if we want to get high in the forest and go in search of the best pieces at dawn, it is best to seek the help of an experienced mushroom picker. We will learn not only how to pick mushrooms without damaging them, but first of all we will learn which specimens are edible and which ones are best avoided. Home worth havingtlas mushrooms and check if the items in the basket are edible. If in doubt, it is better to give up one mushroom than to have health problems. An excellent guide to mushrooms is Iza Kulinska, who publishes a private atlas of mushrooms on her blog Smaczna Pyza with practical tips for cooking dishes using them.
How to dry mushrooms?
Dried mushrooms are a unique addition to dishes - they give them a unique aroma and depth of taste. They can be added whole to soups, sauces, stews or barley soup. You can also mix them into a powder and sprinkle this mushroom dust on mashed potatoes, white vegetable cream, baked meats, or add to butter and make a flavored butter. Mushroom dust can also be added to dark chocolate to make rich-tasting pralines.
Mushrooms can be dried in three ways: in the sun, in the oven or in electric mushroom dryer. Before drying, mushrooms must be thoroughly cleaned of moss and earth. This is best done with a knife and a thin brush. Do not submerge mushrooms in water to dry. We can wipe them down with a damp cloth. For drying, it is best to choose larger specimens, which will significantly shrink during the drying process.
In my family home, two types of mushrooms were dried: porcini mushrooms and kites. First, the grandmother cut off the cap from the hat. Then I cut them into strips (hats) and slices (handles). My aunt, on the other hand, dries the boletus caps completely, because she likes to see whole specimens in sauce and soup. Grandmother dried mushrooms in the sun and over the stove. She strung a thick thread on a needle and strung mushrooms on it. Then on hot days she hung them on the porch, and on rainy days she hung them over the stove and waited for them to dry. This method had one drawback - there were cases when flies grew in perfectly healthy mushrooms. Wormy mushrooms had to be painfully thrown away. With the advent of the grandmother's stove, drying mushrooms has become more efficient. There was always baking paper at the bottom of the plates, which did not allow the mushrooms to stick together. The oven heated up to 40 degrees and left the door ajar. The mushrooms placed on the plate were dried in this way for several hours, turning them over and over again so that the water evaporated from the whole specimens evenly.
Appearance on the market dryers for mushrooms and fruits did this dry mushrooms it became empty. It is enough to place the cleaned and prepared samples on the plates and turn on the device. When drying mushrooms, make sure that there is no water in them. Otherwise, they will become moldy and have to be thrown away.
How to store dried mushrooms?
Dried mushrooms are best stored in a dark place at room temperature. You can store them in linen bags - if the house is dry and we like the strong mushroom smell around us. If we like the smell of mushrooms in dishes, and not on clothes, it is better to close them in glass jars. It's a good idea to throw a few bay leaves inside to protect yourself from intruders. Dried mushrooms can be stored for many years.
How to pickle mushrooms?
One of the biggest culinary nightmares of my childhood was pickled buttermilk. Today, I like their non-obvious texture, and I use the buttermilk marinade recipe for cooking other types - porcini mushrooms and boletus.
Pickled mushrooms must be thoroughly cleaned of grass, moss and sand. Mushrooms are not particularly soaked so as not to deprive them of their aroma. Small mushrooms can be left to marinate whole. Large ones need to be trimmed to fit in the jar. Some cut the whole mushrooms in half, others separate the caps from the legs. There is no one right way to cook mushrooms, so let's do it the way we like to eat.
Pour 1 kg of peeled mushrooms with spicy water (1 tablespoon of water, 1 tablespoon of salt, 1/2 tablespoon of vinegar) and cook for 10 minutes after boiling. Strain the mushrooms carefully so as not to damage them.
We are preparing the marinade. Boil ½ cup vinegar, 1½ cups water, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 teaspoon salt, and 5 thinly sliced small white onions in a saucepan. Boil the onion in the marinade for XNUMX minutes and remove.
Scald jars and lids. In each jar, put 2 bay leaves, 2 allspice grains, 6 pepper grains, 1 cloves and a few pieces of onion. We put the cooked mushrooms. Pour boiling marinade so that it covers the contents of the jar. Gently tap the jar on the countertop to expel the air from the bottom of the jar. Banks are well closed.
What to cook with fresh mushrooms?
The simplest mushroom dish is simply mushrooms fried in sour cream. It loads the liver at least a little, but it's worth every bite. Cut the cleaned mushrooms. We heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, add rosemary, fry for ten seconds until we smell the aroma of herbs and carefully remove from the pan. Add finely chopped onion and 1 tablespoon butter to a frying pan and sauté the onion until soft. Add mushrooms, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Fry with stirring for about 5 minutes. At the end, pour in 30% cream and sprinkle with fresh dill. Serve with boiled potatoes or buckwheat.
Mushrooms are made for soup. Simply add them to your favorite broth, preferably vegetable broth, with diced carrots, parsley and potatoes. I like to add some fine barley to my mushroom soup. Serve with cream and fresh dill.
Some people are willing to die for a pork chop. A large hat is enough to clean, cut into slices or leave whole. Sprinkle the mushroom with flour and a little salt, dip in the beaten egg, and then roll in breadcrumbs. Fry the prepared mushroom cutlet, preferably in melted butter. Serve with fresh bread or boiled potatoes.
How do you like to serve and eat mushrooms? In the comments, write ideas on what to cook from mushrooms - dry, marinate, or maybe fry in a pan or cook mushroom soup. What do you recommend?
