Honey mushrooms have a worthy place in the mushroom “kingdom”. These mushrooms are not only pleasant to collect, but also to prepare various dishes from them. From the harvest of honey mushrooms you can make delicious preparations for the winter, which will certainly warm your soul and remind you of warm days spent in the forest.
Mushroom pickers consider honey mushrooms to be very tasty, tender and quite versatile fruiting bodies. They can be stewed, fried, pickled, salted, fermented, frozen and dried. No other type of mushroom is subjected to such diverse processing processes. However, before appearing on our table, honey mushrooms go through a difficult path of cleaning, heat treatment and other procedures.
Preparing honey mushrooms for processing is an important procedure on which the quality and shelf life of the finished product will depend. Before considering each method of processing mushrooms separately, you need to familiarize yourself with some general rules for cleaning and sorting them.
Stages of primary processing
First of all, it should be noted that collected honey mushrooms cannot be stored fresh for a long time. Otherwise, they may quickly lose their taste and nutritional properties. In addition, leaving the basket untouched after returning from the forest, the appearance of fresh honey mushrooms will quickly cease to be presentable. Most likely, all you will get in the end is the blackened and unsightly remains of what was once called honey mushrooms. In particular, wet mushrooms that were collected in rainy weather do not tolerate long-term storage. Therefore, the conclusion suggests itself: it is necessary to sort and clean this type of fruiting bodies immediately after arriving from the forest.
But if for some reason this cannot be done, then be sure to take them out of the basket, sort them out and put them on newspaper in the room. At the same time, avoid direct sunlight, unless, of course, you are going to dry the mushrooms. Thanks to such actions, their preservation increases to 7-8 hours.
Primary processing of honey mushrooms at home includes several stages. Of course, it would be wise to start cleaning mushrooms in the forest, removing heavily contaminated areas with a knife. In this case, you will save sedum time in the future, and you won’t drag so much dirt home. Although honey mushrooms are considered clean mushrooms, some of them still have a lot of dirt on them. Here everything depends on the place where the fruiting bodies grow, as well as on the weather conditions under which they were collected.
So, when you come home, the first thing you need to do is sort through the mushrooms and throw away any wormy or rotten ones, if any are found. You can sort through mushrooms in the following way: we send young and whole specimens to one pile, and large, broken and trimmed ones to another. Then you should take a knife and cut off the lower part of the leg. If you notice small areas of rot and blackening on the fruit body, do not rush to throw it away. Simply cut this area with a knife, capturing a significant part of the “healthy” body. In addition, you can remove the damaged stem from the mushroom, leaving a completely intact and beautiful cap. You can also often find bugs under the cap of the honey fungus, but this does not mean it is spoiled. Take a knife and carefully remove the top layer along with the insects. Next, you need to decide for which processing process you want to use mushrooms. The further preparation of the fruiting bodies will depend on your decision.
Processing honey mushrooms means the following processes: drying, pickling, salting, frying, freezing and preservation. Thus, small and whole mushrooms are excellent for pickling and pickling. And unpresentable fruiting bodies can be cut into pieces and used for all other processes. Let's now look at the preparation for each method of processing honey mushrooms separately.
Taste and benefits of autumn mushrooms
Honey fungus got its name because of the place where it is most often found by lovers of “quiet hunting”: that is, on tree stumps. There are more than 10 varieties of these mushrooms, but autumn honey mushrooms are excellent for harvesting for the winter. They have a yellowish-brown cap with a diameter of 5-8 cm and a stem length of up to 10 cm.
You can find autumn honey fungus in gardens, forests, stumps and windbreaks. Thanks to their pleasant sweetish taste and unusual aroma, honey mushrooms, collected in the fall, are excellent for making soups, gravies, and broths. Many housewives successfully use them for pickling, frying, salting and preparing complex dishes.
Preparing honey mushrooms for canning for the winter
Canned mushrooms perfectly complement almost any dish on the table. An important role in preparing honey mushrooms for canning is played by soaking, boiling and sterilizing dishes. As already noted, ugly, broken and large honey mushrooms are used for canned mushrooms. After the initial cleaning, the mushrooms need to be cut into pieces, placed in a deep container and filled with water mixed with salt. The ingredients for the solution are taken from the following calculation: for 1 liter of water 1.5 tbsp. l. table or natural sea salt. After which you should leave the fruiting bodies to soak for 1.5 hours. During this time, the salt will open the pores of the mushroom and remove excess dirt and sand from it. In addition, if there are worms in the honey mushrooms, they will simply float to the top.
After the set time, transfer the mushrooms to a colander and rinse them with plain tap water. If there are a lot of fruiting bodies, then wash them in small portions. Otherwise, it will be difficult for you to rid honey mushrooms of salt.
Thanks to soaking, we prepare honey mushrooms for cooking, which will follow later. It is enough to boil mushrooms in just one water. To do this, you need to boil water in an enamel pan (1 cup of liquid per 1 kg of honey mushrooms) and lay out the fruiting bodies. You can add a few pinches of salt and citric acid on the tip of a knife. Boiling time will depend on the age of the fruiting bodies. So, 15 minutes of boiling is enough for young mushrooms, and 25 minutes for their older “brothers”. Then drain the water and rinse the product again under the tap.
Preserving such mushrooms for the winter in the form of caviar, salads and other snacks will be a welcome “guest” on your table. Honey mushrooms go well with vegetables: onions, carrots, garlic, tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, etc. Here you already need to take into account your own preferences and the tastes of your family.
However, immediately before preservation, jars must be sterilized. Typically, 0.5 and 1 liter glass jars are used for this process. The containers should be thoroughly washed on both sides and heated in boiling water for about 35-45 minutes. In addition, the lids also need to be boiled for at least 20 minutes.
For long-term preservation, the jars are sterilized again, but together with preservation. Place a cloth folded 3-4 times at the bottom of a large pan of water. Then they place the jars with the preparation and cover with water until 1.5-2 cm remains to the neck. Bring to a boil and note the time: for 0.5 liter jars - 25 minutes, and for 1 liter - 35 minutes. Then roll it up and leave it to cool at room temperature.
How to cook honey mushrooms?
Many housewives who have not previously encountered cooking honey mushrooms are interested in the question of how to properly, quickly, and most importantly, deliciously fry this product and prepare other dishes from boiled honey mushrooms.
Frying honey mushrooms in a frying pan
To prepare you will need:
- boiled mushrooms – 700 g;
- onion – 1 pc.;
- butter for frying;
- salt and other spices to taste.
Cooking time: 20-25 minutes.
The onion is cut into small cubes and fried in oil until golden brown. The main ingredient, in turn, is fried in a separate frying pan in butter for 5 minutes. After that, the contents of the 2 pans are combined, mixed and fried for another 5 minutes. After turning off the heat, add salt and other spices to taste. The dish is ready to be served.
Advice!
Fry the mushrooms until fully cooked for 10 minutes. For cooking, it is better to choose a deep frying pan, since during the cooking process excess moisture comes out of the product.
Fried mushrooms go well with potatoes, rice and pasta. After frying, some housewives recommend stewing the product in sour cream with the addition of garlic and other spicy spices. Sour cream will make the taste of the dish softer and fresher, and garlic will add piquancy and spiciness to it.
Popular dishes made from boiled fruits
To prepare mushroom salad you will need:
- boiled honey mushrooms – 300 g;
- boiled chicken fillet – 300 g;
- walnuts – 100 g;
- eggs (pre-boiled) – 3 pcs.;
- mayonnaise – 100 g;
- salt – ½ tbsp. l.
Honey mushrooms and chicken fillet must be cut into large cubes or slices. Next, cut the eggs into cubes.
Salad with honey mushrooms
After all the boiled ingredients have been cut, you can start chopping the walnuts (should be chopped until crumbly). A coffee grinder or blender is perfect for this. If you don’t have these devices, you can use a rolling pin and literally roll out the nuts with it. All crushed products are seasoned with mayonnaise, salted and mixed. The dish can be served on lettuce leaves.
Features of preparing honey mushrooms for pickling
Preparing honey mushrooms for pickling is similar to canning, but has a number of its own characteristics. Do not forget that for this method it is better to use small and young honey mushrooms, which will look beautiful and appetizing in a jar.
Soaking and boiling are mandatory for this process. After the initial cleaning of the mushrooms from dirt, you can proceed to the above steps. For young specimens, the soaking time is about 45 minutes, and the cooking time is 15 minutes. After soaking, the mushrooms should be rinsed with cold water. The same procedure must be repeated after boiling. Then you need to put them in a colander to drain excess liquid. If there are a lot of fruiting bodies, then after boiling they can be distributed on a dry cloth, so the excess moisture will disappear faster.
Processing honey mushrooms for the winter by pickling is carried out using hot and cold methods. In the first case, the mushrooms are boiled directly in the marinade, then placed in jars and rolled up. And in the second case, the marinade is cooked separately. After which it is poured into jars that already contain boiled honey mushrooms. For the marinade, different spices are used, the most popular of which are cloves, black pepper grains, bay leaves and cinnamon. The required ingredients for pickled honey mushrooms are salt, sugar and vinegar. All this is mixed with a certain amount of water and boiled over low heat for 7-10 minutes.
Marinating honey mushrooms also involves the use of sterilized jars and lids. This procedure takes place in a water bath for 10-15 minutes. In addition, for this case you can use the oven. Place the jars washed with soda or laundry soap into a cold or warm oven and gradually increase the temperature. The maximum temperature should be no more than 150°C, and the residence time of the cans should be 15 minutes. But the lids can simply be lowered into boiling water for 10 minutes.
The finished twists are cooled at room temperature and taken to the basement. The soaking time for honey mushrooms with marinade is on average 30-45 days.
Why do mushrooms need to be processed immediately?
The first priority after harvesting is processing the mushrooms. There is no need to delay the process, because the product quickly deteriorates. If it is not possible to process the crop immediately after arriving from the forest, you are allowed to postpone work for only a few hours.
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Preparing honey mushrooms for pickling using cold and hot methods
Salting fruit bodies is somewhat different from traditional pickling. In this case, preparing honey mushrooms for pickling will depend on the method of the procedure itself. So, you can pickle mushrooms cold or hot. For the first, the mushrooms are boiled in advance, and for the second, they are not boiled at all. However, remember that only young and small honey mushrooms are suitable for the cold pickling method.
The cold method involves more thorough preparation than the hot method. So, after initial cleaning, mushrooms must be soaked in salted water for 2 hours and then rinsed. In addition, honey mushrooms should be pre-weighed in order to correctly calculate the amount of preservative for pickling. For 1 kg of fresh honey mushrooms you need 40 g of coarse table salt. For the hot pickling method, simply rinse the mushrooms in water and boil for 15 minutes. Honey mushrooms are laid out in layers, alternating with salt, fresh cherry, currant, oak, horseradish leaves, clove branches, dill umbrellas, garlic and other ingredients. However, do not overdo it with spices so that they do not drown out the taste and aroma of the mushrooms.
Mushrooms are salted under pressure in barrels, jars, enamel buckets or pans, as well as in large ceramic containers. Preparing honey mushrooms for processing using these methods also involves using clean dishes, which must first be doused with boiling water and dried naturally.
Frozen mushroom soup
Frozen honey mushrooms make a delicious, rich soup. When cooked, they do not fall apart and do not lose their shape. Mushroom soups are included in dietary, lenten and vegetarian dishes. Mushroom soup can be prepared from frozen, pickled and dried honey mushrooms. This dish will not be the last one in your cookbook. Let's prepare mushroom soup from frozen honey mushrooms.
Ingredients:
- potatoes - 5 pcs;
- onion - 1 piece;
- carrots - 1 piece;
- small vermicelli;
- frozen honey mushrooms;
- salt;
- seasonings;
- greenery.
Cooking method:
- First, let's peel all the vegetables. We wash all the vegetables well. We take the frozen honey mushrooms out of the freezer.
- Next we chop the vegetables. They can be cut as you wish or as you are used to. I finely chopped the onion, it’s better to take more, it goes well with mushrooms, cut the carrots into thin half rings, put the onions and carrots in one bowl, cut the potatoes not very coarsely, but not very finely either.
- Place the chopped potatoes into the container in which the soup will be cooked. I took a small saucepan. Fill the potatoes with water until it covers them. You can add a little more water. Place on medium heat to simmer.
- Honey mushrooms do not need to be defrosted. Pour them into a cup with holes. I used a multicooker bowl for steaming. They need to be rinsed quickly under cold water to prevent them from defrosting. This way we wash off ice and possible dirt from them.
- Pour vegetable oil into a heated frying pan. As soon as it has warmed up, put the onions and carrots in it. Mix well. Let it fry over medium heat for about 2-3 minutes. You can add a little salt to our vegetables. This will make the onion more fried. As soon as the onion becomes transparent, add honey mushrooms. Mix everything well. Add the amount of mushrooms to your taste. There should be as many honey mushrooms as there are vegetables. Fry for about 5 more minutes.
- After the allotted time has passed, turn off the fire. Add fried honey mushrooms to boiled potatoes. Salt. Cook the soup until the potatoes are cooked. As soon as the broth boils, pour small vermicelli into it and stir. Cook the mushroom soup for another 5-7 minutes. As soon as the vermicelli is cooked, add herbs, seasonings and you can turn it off.
Proper preparation of honey mushrooms for frying
Preparing honey mushrooms for frying begins with traditional cleaning and sorting. It must be said that for this process you can safely use broken, large and trimmed mushrooms. However, first they need to be cut into large strips or cubes. After which they should be rinsed under water or soaked for 40 minutes if there are large stains. Then the fruiting bodies need to be transferred to a pan with boiling salted water (for 1 kg of honey mushrooms: 2 tbsp. water + 1 tsp. salt). Boil for 10-15 minutes and place in a colander to remove excess liquid.
It must be said that proper preparation of honey mushrooms for frying does not always imply preliminary boiling. Many housewives are content with just soaking, and then immediately putting it on a heated frying pan. However, it is extremely undesirable to carry out such a procedure with large and old honey mushrooms.
Before frying, add a small amount of vegetable oil to the pan. Frying time ranges from 15 to 25 minutes. You can add finely chopped onions and sour cream, and then simmer the mushrooms for another 5 minutes.
Washing technique
Washed mushrooms should be cooked immediately
Immediately after the mushroom picker has finished processing the fruiting bodies, he washes them under cool running water using a colander. To rinse honey mushrooms and get rid of the “skirt,” the pressure is increased.
You should not leave washed fresh mushrooms overnight. If after harvesting there is no time to immediately start cooking, the harvest is poured with boiled water for 20 minutes, laid out along a colander, doused with cool water and placed in the refrigerator. This thermal procedure ensures the safety of honey mushrooms and guarantees their long-term storage.
Cleaning mushrooms: why and how?
Collected fresh honey mushrooms tend to darken quickly, so they must be processed immediately upon bringing them home.
Peeled, dried mushrooms can be stored in the freezer for a year. Before processing begins, the harvested crop must be sorted. Old, wrinkled, rotten, or eaten by worms or insects specimens must be mercilessly removed and cannot be cooked. If only the stem is affected, you can throw it away, leaving the cap. You also need to remove stuck debris - blades of grass, leaves, twigs. The question often arises: why clean honey mushrooms, because due to their small size it is very troublesome. The fact is that even edible mushrooms may have damaged areas that need to be disposed of. In addition, small bugs can often be found under the cap. This does not indicate spoilage of the mushroom; they can be easily removed.
Before direct processing, you need to decide whether the honey mushrooms will be dried or not. The cleaning method depends on this. If you plan to dry them, it will be enough to cut off the damaged areas with a knife. It is also recommended to cut off the lower half of the leg, even if it is good, since the legs of honey mushrooms can be rather hard. Next, use a dry toothbrush with hard bristles to remove the film under the cap. If insects are observed, they can be easily removed with a knife. When processing mushrooms before drying, no water is used.
If you plan to cook honey mushrooms fresh or they are intended for pickling, then before directly cleaning it would be correct to soak them briefly in warm water. Soaking should not last more than an hour - mushrooms that are too saturated with moisture lose their taste. After soaking, you need to scrape off the film or skirt with a knife, rinse the mushrooms with water to get rid of insects under the cap. If the housewife is looking for a way to quickly clean honey mushrooms, then the skirt does not need to be removed; this will not affect the taste characteristics, and it will take less time to clean. Actually, this is the whole cleaning process - wild mushrooms do not require too careful processing.
How long can unprocessed honey mushrooms be stored?
You can only store fresh collected, unprocessed honey mushrooms for six hours, and even then, you can store them in the freezer. It is better to clean and cook mushrooms almost immediately after picking.
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