Oyster mushrooms are common mushrooms. But not everyone knows how to cook them correctly and tasty. This article will help those who are preparing oyster mushrooms for the first time, because it contains the simplest and most accessible recipes for preparing these mushrooms.
A very common mushroom growing on trees is oyster mushrooms. They are considered edible, but as with any other forest mushrooms, you should be careful with them. It's all about the chitin that these mushrooms contain. It is not absorbed by humans and can cause undesirable consequences. Therefore, oyster mushrooms must be subjected to heat treatment.
This is how oyster mushrooms grow in nature
Do I need to peel oyster mushrooms before frying and how?
Oyster mushroom is one of the so-called “pure” mushrooms. These are the mushrooms that do not require cleaning before cooking. The most you can do with them is to lightly walk over the root or cut with a knife to remove the soil, or wash them. Just keep in mind that working with oyster mushrooms requires caution, because these mushrooms crumble very easily. Therefore, do not wash them under running water or drop them.
After the mushroom has been washed or cleaned of a small amount of contaminants, you can begin heat treatment.
Oyster mushrooms are great for both salads and hot dishes
Advantages of the method
All doubts as to whether oyster mushrooms can be frozen will dissolve the moment you try to cook potatoes with mushrooms in winter. As if you had just returned from the forest. The taste is not different at all. Let's take a quick look at the benefits of the freezing method:
- Unlike drying and pickling, this process is very fast. It requires virtually no labor. Just put the mushrooms in bags and put them in the freezer. The only problem is the small freezer capacity.
- Thanks to this method, the color, taste, aroma and structure of mushrooms are preserved as much as possible.
- Is it possible to freeze oyster mushrooms at home without using the blast freezing method? Yes, you can. In this case, the content of vitamins, sugars and minerals of the preparations is practically not inferior to freshly picked mushrooms.
Do I need to boil oyster mushrooms before frying?
There is an opinion that oyster mushroom is a dangerous mushroom and you can get poisoned by it. Allegedly, therefore, it is imperative to carry out double heat treatment: first boil, and then only fry.
In fact, this has nothing to do with reality. You can fry oyster mushrooms immediately after you collect them. The mushroom is not dangerous; it can only be boiled or only fried.
Oyster mushrooms do not cook for very long
Choosing the right mushrooms
They need to be carefully inspected before freezing. Not all prey brought from the forest can be sent for storage.
- If there are yellow or brown spots on the cap, the mushroom should be set aside.
- If the cap is covered with cracks, there are dried edges - this indicates that the fruiting body is not fresh. It is not suitable for storage.
- The legs of oyster mushrooms are tough and contain very few useful substances. Therefore, do not take up space in the freezer with them. The legs need to be cut as high as possible towards the cap.
- Since freezing oyster mushrooms is not at all difficult, you can even entrust this task to children. But it’s better to sort it yourself. It must be remembered that the age of a mushroom can be determined by the size of the cap. In young specimens it is not too large. But old, overgrown caps are not so tasty. Their flesh is fresh and fibrous, and after cooking it becomes rubbery. And it contains much less nutrients.
How many minutes to fry fresh and frozen oyster mushrooms until done?
Fresh oyster mushrooms are usually fried for no more than 15 minutes. The mushroom greatly decreases in size after heat treatment, and a lot of moisture comes out of it. If you plan to add any other ingredients to the oyster mushrooms, you should do this before frying the oyster mushrooms. In other words, first you fry vegetables, for example, and only then add mushrooms. In this case, you also need to fry the mushrooms for at least 15 minutes.
Oyster mushrooms are especially tasty when fried.
Frozen ones need to be cooked a couple of minutes longer given the fact that they must first defrost. Thus, you need to fry frozen oyster mushrooms for 17 to 20 minutes.
Frozen oyster mushrooms will retain all vitamins and microelements
Where do autumn oyster mushrooms grow?
The peculiarity of late oyster mushroom is long-term fruiting. This mushroom can be found in the forest throughout the fall. It bears fruit until frost and stable snow appears.
These mushrooms can appear even after November if the air temperature rises to +5 °C. In case of a thaw, single oyster mushrooms grow in February-March.
Where it grows:
- forests - deciduous and mixed;
- habitat - the mushroom is widespread in the Leningrad region, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Far East, Ukraine, Western Europe, North America;
- trees - the fungus prefers rotting wood of oak, alder, elm, birch, maple, willow, poplar and other deciduous trees.
The mushroom often grows in colonies, forming giant peaks of interlocking caps. Oyster mushrooms rarely appear on coniferous trees.
How to properly fry oyster mushrooms with onions in a frying pan: recipe
Fried oyster mushrooms with onions are a classic. This dish is very flavorful and easy to prepare. But despite the fact that the dish belongs to the simple category, it has its own cooking secrets.
Ingredients:
- oyster mushrooms – 600 g
- onion - 250 g
- Unscented sunflower oil – 50-100 ml
- garlic - 3 cloves
- dill - 2 sprigs
- thin green onions - 10 feathers
- salt - to taste
Preparation:
- Check the oyster mushrooms for contamination; if there is any, rinse.
- Cut the mushrooms into cubes or slices.
- Peel the onion.
- Cut the onion into strips or cubes. Depends on how you cut the mushrooms.
- Pour 2 tablespoons of oil into a hot frying pan with a thick bottom (this is important).
- When the oil is hot and sizzling, add the onion.
- Fry the onion for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly, until it turns golden.
- Add mushrooms to onions.
- Fry mushrooms and onions for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add salt and stir.
- At the same time, peel the garlic.
- Cut off the bottom and cut the rest into small cubes.
- Chop the greens with a knife until very fine.
- When the mushrooms are cooked, remove them from the heat and season with garlic. When serving, garnish with chopped herbs.
process of frying mushrooms and onions
Ready dish
False doubles
There are no poisonous analogues of oyster mushrooms in Russian forests, so there is no danger when collecting these mushrooms. The main thing is to follow the rules of collection, preparation and consumption.
A dangerous analogue of the autumn oyster mushroom grows in Australia, but in Russia you can only find false species of this tree fungus. But it is difficult to confuse late oyster mushroom with other mushrooms, since it grows at a time when the mushroom season in the forest is almost over.
False oyster mushrooms:
- Orange. It has hard flesh that is practically unsuitable for consumption. But this mushroom is very decorative; it is often grown to decorate gardens. It is almost impossible to confuse a bright mushroom with a discreet autumn oyster mushroom. It is inedible and non-toxic and smells like rotten fruit.
- Green. These mushrooms differ from late oyster mushrooms in color - they have greenish caps. If you taste the mushroom, you can see that it has extremely bitter flesh.
- Oyster. This is an edible mushroom with gray-white caps, smooth, varnished. A purple tint may be present. Pulp with a pleasant mushroom smell.
- Sheathed. Its flesh smells like raw peeled potatoes. On the spore-bearing layer there is a cover-cover (hence the name). The mushroom is edible.
- Wolf's saw-leaf. Inedible, but not poisonous. It has a rich, bitter pulp. It smells like rotten cabbage. Color: yellow-orange-red.
How to deliciously fry oyster mushrooms with potatoes: recipe
Who doesn't love mushrooms and potatoes? And how well do they go together, especially with homemade pickles?! This recipe should become a basic recipe for every housewife. Suitable not only for oyster mushrooms, but also for boletus, champignons and many other mushrooms.
Ingredients:
- small potatoes - 1-1.5 kg
- oyster mushrooms – 0.5 – 1 kg
- onion - 200 g
- odorless vegetable oil - optional
- green onions - a small bunch
- favorite spices (ground black pepper, hot chili, suneli hops, oregano, paprika) - to taste
- salt - to taste
Preparation:
- Inspect the mushrooms for contamination and, if necessary, rinse.
- Cut the mushrooms into medium pieces or strips.
- Peel the potatoes and cut into slices. Therefore, you should not take large potatoes, they will look sloppy.
- Pour oil into a hot frying pan with a thick bottom.
- When the oil is hot and starts to sizzle, add the potatoes.
- Fry the potatoes for 10 minutes, keeping them on each side for at least 3 minutes (high heat).
- Then add chopped mushrooms.
- Fry for 7-10 minutes. There is no need to stir often. Maximum 2-3 times during this time.
- 5 minutes before the potatoes are ready, add the chopped onion.
- Fry everything together for 5 minutes under the lid, adding salt and spices.
- Finely chop the greens with a knife and season the dish with it when serving.
come up with an original design for the dish
Gourmet dish
More ingredients will be needed, as will labor costs. But your efforts will be highly appreciated by all family members. For the proposed version of oyster mushrooms in the oven with potatoes, take twice as many tubers as mushrooms. Basic quantity – 800 and 400 grams; dinner is enough for three. If there are more eaters, increase the portion of foods accordingly.
There is no need to boil oyster mushrooms. Wash them, cut into medium slices and fry until golden. Then add thin half rings of two onions to the mushrooms. Keep on fire until the onion becomes transparent. Don't forget to stir.
Potatoes are cut randomly and mixed with mayonnaise, salt and pepper. Place the prepared ingredients in a greased pan in layers: first, half the potatoes, then the mushrooms and onions (salt!), and finally the remaining potatoes. Cover the “structure” with grated cheese. Your delicacy will bake for about half an hour. When finished, decorate it with fresh herbs.
How to deliciously fry oyster mushrooms with sour cream: recipe
Mushrooms fried with sour cream have a special, creamy taste. They can be a great addition to a vegetable side dish, pasta, and they are also suitable for making vol-au-vents and sandwiches.
Ingredients:
- oyster mushrooms – 500 g
- onion - 100 g
- sour cream - 150-200 g
- salt - to taste
- ground black pepper - a pinch
- vegetable oil - optional
- any greenery for decoration
Preparation:
- Clean the mushrooms from dirt and cut into large cubes.
- Peel the onion and cut into thin strips.
- Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan.
- When the oil starts to crackle, add the onion.
- Fry the onion for a couple of minutes until a nice golden brown appears.
- Add mushrooms, fry for literally 3 minutes.
- Add all the sour cream, salt and spices.
- Simmer over low heat until done. This usually takes 15 minutes.
- While our mushrooms are stewing, chop the greens.
- Place the mushrooms on a plate and garnish with herbs to your taste.
Option for serving oyster mushrooms with sour cream
You can add even more sour cream than indicated in the recipe.
Preparation
Freezing mushrooms can be postponed if you do not have time to do it immediately upon returning from the forest. In this case, simply spray them with a spray bottle, put them in a bag and put them in the refrigerator. So they will calmly survive for a day or two.
- Select quality mushrooms. They should not be too large and have a grayish-bluish tint.
- Before freezing, you need to thoroughly rinse and clean the caps of debris. After this, lay them out to dry. It is not advisable to freeze wet mushrooms, as this can damage their structure. Ultimately, this will affect the taste of the pulp.
How to deliciously fry oyster mushrooms with carrots: recipe
Oyster mushrooms with carrots can be called a warm salad if you replace regular carrots with Korean ones.
Ingredients:
- oyster mushrooms – 500 g
- fresh carrots - 200 g
- onion - 100 g
- vegetable oil - 50-70 g
- salt, spices - optional
- greens for serving
Preparation:
- Wash mushrooms if necessary.
- Cut the oyster mushrooms into strips.
- Chop the carrots using a large Korean carrot attachment.
- Peel the onion and chop into strips.
- Heat a frying pan and pour vegetable oil onto it.
- Wait until the oil begins to sizzle, then add the onion.
- After 2 minutes, add carrots. Fry onions and carrots for 3-4 minutes.
- Add the oyster mushrooms and cook over medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- 3 minutes before readiness, season with salt and spices.
- Garnish with chopped herbs, tomato slices and a sprig of parsley. You can sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Beautiful and original dish
Mushroom soup
Fans of first courses will love the following recipe, because oyster mushroom soup is a light, but at the same time satisfying delicacy that does not require a lot of effort to prepare. Since the main ingredients are inexpensive, every family can afford such a lunch or dinner. So, to fulfill your plan, you need to prepare:
- 800-1000 grams of oyster mushrooms;
- 2 carrots;
- 2 potato tubers;
- 1 large onion;
- Horseradish (root) – if available;
- Half a pickled cucumber;
- 150-170 grams of flour;
- Salt pepper.
It is noteworthy that to prepare the soup you can use mushroom stems, which are most often considered tasteless due to their hardness. In fact, people simply don’t know how to cook them - the legs of oyster mushrooms become tender if you spend three times as long processing them (compared to the caps). Some housewives leave the legs in the soup, others use them exclusively to obtain fat. Follow the instructions:
- Take a saucepan for 3-4 liters of water, pour liquid, place the container on the stove. Light the fire.
- Wash the mushrooms, separate the stems from the “heads,” and place them in boiling water along with peeled carrots (1 pc.) and horseradish root. Bring to a boil, reduce the flame, and leave to simmer for 60-70 minutes.
- While the broth is cooking, let's start preparing the dough for homemade noodles. Combine eggs, flour, salt, and a little pepper in a separate bowl. Mix the mixture until it reaches a consistency that does not stick to your hands. If necessary, add more flour.
- We leave the finished dough for 15-20 minutes so that it “distances”, after which we lay it out on a flat surface. Roll out with a rolling pin or bottle into a layer (the ideal layer thickness is no more than 5 mm), cut into thin strips.
- Once we're done with the noodles, we return to our broth. We extract vegetables from the liquid; we no longer need them.
- Finely chop the oyster mushroom caps and the potatoes into cubes. We continue to cook the soup with new ingredients.
- While the food becomes more and more aromatic, fry onion half rings, carrots (chopped on a grater), and cucumber in butter.
- After 15-20 minutes, you can mix the frying with the soup, after another 2 minutes, add the noodles.
To prevent the noodles from becoming overcooked, it is recommended not to delay further cooking - just wait 3-5 minutes, then turn off the flame under the pan, adding chopped herbs.
The soup is ready. Having tried it again, you will not be able to deny yourself an additional portion.
How to deliciously fry oyster mushrooms with garlic: recipe
Mushrooms themselves have a pronounced taste, which can be complemented by the aroma of garlic. It is not recommended to put a lot of spices in this dish so as not to overwhelm the smell of mushrooms.
Ingredients:
- oyster mushrooms – 600 g
- salt - to taste
- garlic - 3 cloves
- parsley sprigs for decoration
- vegetable oil - optional
Preparation:
- Prepare oyster mushrooms as in any other recipe.
- Chop the mushrooms into strips; small ones don’t need to be cut at all.
- Boil water in a saucepan, add a little salt.
- Add mushrooms to the pan and simmer for 3 minutes.
- Drain in a colander.
- While the liquid is draining from the mushrooms, heat a frying pan with thick walls.
- Pour oil into the frying pan.
- Place mushrooms in hot oil.
- Fry until done for 10 minutes.
- At this time, chop the garlic with a knife.
- Add garlic 1 minute before the oyster mushrooms are ready.
- Fry over high heat.
- Garnish with parsley.
Simple preparation of a simple dish
Collection rules
Only young mushrooms are suitable for consumption. Overgrown specimens are not suitable.
How to properly collect oyster mushrooms:
- the best time for collection is dry weather, when the caps are not slippery and the flesh is not saturated with moisture;
- The mushrooms are cut off with a sharp knife - the near-trunk part of their legs, the debris is shaken off and placed in a basket in rows, plates up, so that they do not wrinkle.
It is not recommended to collect oyster mushrooms during periods when frosts give way to thaws - the mushrooms look healthy and strong, but inside they become sour and smell of alcohol or wine.
The collected oyster mushrooms are cooked immediately; it is not recommended to store them even in the refrigerator. But you can freeze it for the winter by first placing it in containers.
How to deliciously fry oyster mushrooms with green onions: recipe
This recipe is a slight adaptation of the recipe for making oyster mushrooms with garlic.
Ingredients:
- oyster mushrooms – 650 g
- green onions - 100 g
- vegetable oil - optional
- garlic - 5 cloves
- salt - optional
Preparation:
- Clean the mushrooms from dirt.
- Cut into medium slices.
- Peel the garlic and cut into small cubes.
- Pour vegetable oil into a hot frying pan.
- Add garlic to the oil.
- Fry the garlic, stirring constantly, until transparent. It is important for us to get garlic oil.
- Add oyster mushrooms to the oil.
- Fry for 10-15 minutes until crusty.
- Salt the mushrooms, chop the onion into rings.
- Add green onions to mushrooms.
- Fry for 3-4 minutes.
Serve straight from the pan, garnished with tomato slices.
You can simply sprinkle the mushrooms with onions
Freezing prepared mushrooms
Some housewives note that this method of cooking greatly simplifies life in winter. Just fry the potatoes and shake out a bag of pre-cooked mushrooms into it, and dinner is ready.
- Boiled mushrooms. This allows you to once again make sure that the product will be safe for you and your family members. To do this, you need to boil water, boil the oyster mushrooms in it for 5 minutes and set aside to cool. After this, the mushrooms can be put into bags and put in the freezer.
- Fried mushrooms. They can also be frozen. To do this, you need to prepare them in the usual way, then cool and put them in the freezer.
How to deliciously fry pickled oyster mushrooms: recipe
Pickled oyster mushrooms taste very different from regular ones. It all depends on the marinade in which the mushrooms were pickled.
Pickled mushrooms can replace fresh mushrooms in any of the previously listed recipes.
Pickled oyster mushrooms can be fried as follows:
- with garlic
- with onion
- with carrots
- with potato
- with greens
The frying time for pickled oyster mushrooms is reduced by 5 minutes.
Perhaps the most successful combination of fried pickled oyster mushrooms is with Korean carrots and sesame seeds!
oyster mushrooms with Korean carrots
Benefits of oyster mushrooms
If autumn oyster mushrooms are properly collected and prepared, you can get not only a tasty, but also a healthy product.
Benefits of eating oyster mushrooms:
- contain many vitamins, as well as fatty acids that lower blood cholesterol levels;
- mushrooms contain easily digestible carbohydrates;
- thanks to polysaccharides, mushrooms have an immunomodulatory effect;
- The pulp contains substances that kill microbes and have an antiparasitic effect.
Oyster mushrooms are a low-calorie product as they contain a lot of fiber. They can be consumed during diets aimed at combating obesity. 100 g of fresh mushrooms contain 33 kcal.
Growing at home and in the country
Before growing eringi at home, it is worth knowing that this species prefers stumps, large branches of any deciduous trees (the bark should not be damaged), and logs. Cultivation of royal oyster mushroom can occur both in the wild (in nature) and in a country house or apartment balcony.
For the most effective method of growing royal oyster mushroom you will need: 1 package (test tube) of mycelium, a log without the slightest sign of rot or spoilage, a drill for forming a trench.
Note! The success of the entire business depends on the quality of the wooden base. The most suitable log diameter is 15-30 cm, and the length should be between 30-50 cm.
The optimal period for the procedure will be from April to October. It is also worth maintaining the required temperature level - 10-27 ºС.
Growing technology:
- Drill several holes in the log with a diameter of no more than 1 cm.
- Place several mycelium sticks in each (you need to do this with sterile gloves).
- Fill each hole with wax or seal with wooden stoppers.
- Place the logs outdoors.
- The stump needs to be watered 2-4 times a week to maintain normal humidity levels.
- The growth of the log continues for 2-3 months.
If you did everything correctly, then after a while you will be able to notice the appearance of a white coating on the logs.
Yerings can also be cultivated using bags of substrate. To do this, buy ready-made grain mycelium (sowing) or prepare it yourself, place it in special containers with sawdust, soil or non-sterile straw and create the necessary temperature conditions.
