The harvest of mushrooms is a rather unpredictable thing and depends on many factors: in one season, the mushroom pickers bring them in buckets, and in the other it is impossible to find a single fungus in the forest. Therefore, every year in late August - early September, harvesting of mushrooms begins for the winter. If you hold the harvesting of white mushrooms in the fall, you can already be sure that you have a beautiful ready-made dish or component for another culinary masterpiece. Mushrooms are, by their nature, a very specific product, since, by and large, nothing but taste is introduced into the dish, and besides, they do not change their structure and composition during digestion.
Drying of white mushrooms
Everyone remembers how in the village above the stove hung garlands of dried mushrooms. Our ancestors were also engaged in drying mushrooms for the winter, because in a dried form, mushrooms retain their taste and delicate aroma. Drain mushrooms for the winter in two ways: under natural conditions and with the help of the oven. Learn more about how to dry the mushrooms, let's talk further.
Did you know? In the process of drying, the loss of fungi in weight is about 87-90%.Drying is a method that is suitable for almost all types of mushrooms, except those that have a bitter taste.
How to dry porcini mushrooms naturally
If you decide to dry the mushrooms in a natural way, then first you need to prepare them, namely: you need to sort the mushrooms again and weed out the lumps of dirt, fragments of branches and leaves. Wash mushrooms do not need. They need to be cut into thin plates about 1.5 cm in size. In good weather, mushrooms can be dried in the open sun: for this, the mushrooms are placed on a flat, flat surface covered with paper or cloth, just the iron surface will not work, as the mushrooms may darken on it and bake. For drying, it is better to choose a place under the cover, but this is where the wind blows well.
If the weather did not work, then you can dry the mushrooms on a loggia or a glazed veranda, but remember to close the window.
How to dry porcini mushrooms using oven
If you are a resident of a big city and you do not have time to dry mushrooms naturally, and there is a way out: you can dry mushrooms with the help of an oven, and it is quite simple to do it. Mushrooms, which are subject to drying, are cleaned of debris and dirt, but do not wash, but only cut off the damaged places. For more convenient drying, fruit bodies are sorted according to size and strung on special needles or laid out on paper.
Important! When drying in the oven / stove, the mushrooms should not touch each other, and it is better to lay the material in one layer.
When drying in the oven should be good air circulation, and also need time to remove moisture that evaporates from the mushrooms. It is impossible to put the heat at once, the mushrooms must first be pulled up at a temperature of 45 degrees. If you put the temperature immediately higher, then protein substances will be released from the mushrooms, which, when dried, will give a darker shade to the mushrooms. The temperature can be raised only after the mushrooms cease to stick and the surface dries, at this point the temperature rises to 75-80 degrees. The duration of the drying process is impossible to determine exactly, depending on the size of the mushrooms can be dried for different periods of time: the mushrooms that have already dried out need to be removed in time and the rest turned over.How to pickle white mushrooms for the winter
Salting porcini mushrooms for the winter is a very popular method of harvesting them for prolonged use and after the harvest season, and there are many ways and recipes to pickle mushrooms in the jar as well as in another container. Mushrooms, harvested by salting, can be used to prepare a variety of dishes - from soups to sauces.
How to cook milk mushrooms for salting in the winter
Before spinning mushrooms, prepared by salting for the winter, they need to be carefully prepared. Mushrooms for salting should be fresh and healthy, not overripe, without mechanical damage. Mushrooms must be sorted by two criteria: by type and size, trim the legs.
Did you know? Before salting the butter and syroezhek need to clean the outer skin.
Before salting, rinse the mushrooms well with cool water, dropping them into a container with water and allowing excess moisture to drain. After you have cleaned the mushrooms, they must be cleaned of adhering dirt and debris, the damaged areas must be cut off. Mushrooms are cut according to size: the larger the mushroom itself, the finer it is to cut it. If you decide to salt mushrooms, mokhoviki or boletus, you should take into account the fact that even with short-term contact with air they can darken, for this they need to be placed in a solution of salt and citric acid in a ratio of 10 g of salt and 2 g citric acid per liter of water.Salt milk mushrooms can be in several ways: cold, hot and dry. Let us consider these three processes in more detail.
How to salt milk mushrooms for the winter in a cold way
The cold method of salting can be used when working with those mushrooms that do not require preliminary heat treatment: mushrooms, milk mushrooms, waves, russules, etc. The first stage of salting is soaking the mushrooms for 1-2 days in clean water, which must be changed often. . Soak mushrooms in salt water at the rate of 10 g of salt, 2 g of citric acid per 1 liter of water. Mushrooms that are soaked in such water should be kept in a cool room.
Important! Mushrooms of different types need to be soaked for different periods of time, so Valui is soaked for 3 days, milk mushrooms and podgruzdi - for 2 days, and volvushki and moths - a day. Ryzhiki and russula do not soak.If the soaking process takes you a lot of time, you can prepare them by blanching, for this they need to be dipped in boiling water and left for a few minutes or pour boiling water. After blanching, it is imperative to place the mushrooms in cold water. After that, you need to put the mushrooms in a jar in layers with the caps up, sprinkling the bottom with salt and sprinkling each layer with salt. For 1 kg of salmon will need 50 g of salt. Mushrooms can be seasoned with garlic, dill, pepper, cumin or parsley, as well as use cherry leaves. The filled container is covered with canvas and the “weighting agent” is laid on top, and after a day or two they are taken out to a cool place. A few days later, when the mushrooms thicken a little, you need to report as much as you can to fill the jar / keg, and put the oppression back on. Thus, after some time the container will be filled, and after a week it is necessary to check whether there is brine in the container, if not, you can add it by diluting 20 g of salt in 1 liter of water and increasing the weight of the load. You can store these mushrooms at a temperature of -1-7 degrees.
How to salt mushrooms in a hot way
The hot method of salting gruzdey is not much different from cold pickling, but it requires a lot of time. Start the procedure with the preparation of mushrooms: they are cleaned, washed and soaked or blanched, cut.
You need to pour 0.5 liters of water (per 1 kg of mushrooms) into a dish that is convenient for you (a small saucepan or stew-pan) and add a pinch of salt. When the water boils, you can put mushrooms in it. While cooking, mushrooms must be stirred all the time, otherwise they will burn. After the water boils, you must remove the foam, add spices to taste and cook until ready: the cooking time is from 10 to 25 minutes.
Did you know? The readiness of mushrooms can be determined by the fact that they have settled to the bottom, and the brine has become transparent.Ready mushrooms need to fold in a wide dish for the fastest cooling, and then put in jars with brine. The ratio of brine and fungi: 1 part of brine and 5 parts of mushrooms. It is possible to use the mushrooms salted in such a way in a month and a half.
Dry pickled mushrooms
When using the dry method of salting, mushrooms do not require special preparation: they need to be cleaned, wiped with a soft, damp cloth and should not be washed. Then you need to cut all the damaged places and cut mushrooms. Mushrooms should be laid out in a container for salting with layers, sprinkling each salt, cover with canvas and press down with a weighting agent, which is made of a material that does not have the ability to oxidize. Mushrooms can be eaten in a week or one and a half, when the product is ready, on top of it will be a juice that should cover the mushrooms completely. This method is also called “dry” because the mushrooms do not require additional spices, because the mushrooms themselves already have a very rich, piquant, resinous taste. 
Important! Thus, it is possible to salt not all the mushrooms, but only a small number of their species, namely, mushrooms and podoreshniki.
Ways to freeze porcini mushrooms
Freezing of white mushrooms is the easiest and most affordable way for housewives to harvest mushrooms for the winter. You can freeze almost all types of mushrooms, and then use them in the preparation of almost any dish.
Freeze white mushrooms raw
Freezing white mushrooms in the winter raw is very simple. Before sending the mushrooms in the freezer, they need to be cleaned and washed. Mushrooms can only be frozen frozen, otherwise they will stick together during freezing. Peeled and washed mushrooms must be cut into thin plates 5-7 mm wide and laid out on a flat surface convenient for you. In this form, send the mushrooms in the freezer. If there is little space in the freezer, you can chop the mushrooms into small pieces and freeze them in special freezer bags or containers with an airtight lid, which is necessary so that the mushrooms do not soak up the smell of other products.
Boiled frozen white mushrooms
Boiled frozen mushrooms are stored for a long time and well, not yielding anything raw. It is quite simple to freeze boiled mushrooms, although the process may seem long. The first thing to do is to clear the debris from the mushrooms, cut into small pieces and rinse with plenty of running water. Mushrooms should be put on fire in an enamel or steel pot, without covering with a lid, so that water does not boil off and do not stain your stove.
After the mushrooms boil, the fire should be lowered to the minimum level, which still boils. In this form, the mushrooms should boil for a few minutes, then they need to be drained and put on the fire again in clean water, boil until the mushrooms sink to the bottom. Then remove the dishes from the heat and strain the mushrooms, let them cool.
Did you know? It is better to leave to cool the mushrooms in a sieve, then you can be sure that there will be no excess moisture in the mushrooms.Next, the mushrooms are packaged in bags or containers, tightly closed, labeled with the date of freezing and sent to the freezer.
Freeze fried white mushrooms
Not only raw or boiled mushrooms are suitable for freezing, thus it is possible to carry out the preparation of fried white mushrooms. To freeze fried mushrooms is quite simple: the mushrooms must be cleaned of debris, and the butter should be removed from the skin. After you clean the mushrooms, they need to be cut into rather large pieces and rinse. Put the mushrooms on a heated pan with a small amount of oil and fry until the liquid evaporates. Then the mushrooms must be removed from the heat and wait until cool. Cooled mushrooms must be packaged in bags or containers, tightly closed and sent to the freezer.
Important! In order to preserve the rich mushroom taste and smell, it is necessary to roast the mushrooms in the oven without oil before freezing.Fried mushrooms can be stored at a temperature not lower than -18 degrees and immediately subjected to heat treatment after defrosting.
Marinating white mushrooms
Every housewife at least once cooked mushrooms, marinated for the winter, and each has its own recipe. This is a popular method of preparation, which can then be used to prepare other dishes or as a separate dish. Tubular and lamellar mushrooms are suitable for marinating; they are a bit harder in structure than the others; young, not overripe mushrooms should be used. Before marinating mushrooms for the winter, they need to be cleaned, cut out the damaged areas and rinse. Large mushrooms need to be divided and pickled caps and legs separately. Frequently asked question: how to pickle frozen porcini mushrooms. The answer is simple: just like raw ones, however, they must first be thawed, “discarded” and subjected to heat treatment: blanch or boil for a few minutes in boiling water.
So that the mushrooms do not darken, they can be dipped in a solution of salt and citric acid, but before the cooking process itself they will need to be washed.
There are two ways to cook mushrooms in marinade: boil the mushrooms with the marinade in the same dish, it will provide a rich taste and smell, but the appearance of the marinade may not be the most pleasant, it will be dark, sticky, with pieces of mushrooms. The second way is to boil the mushrooms and marinade separately, and then at the moment when the marinade boils, combine the two components. In this case, you can not achieve a particularly rich taste and color, but keep the beautiful look of mushrooms in the marinade work. The finished product should be poured into sterilized containers and closed with sterile caps - this will help avoid botulism. With the slightest changes in the form of mushrooms from such a jar is better to get rid of, so as not to get poisoned.
As you can see, prepare mushrooms simply and inexpensively. Enough to spend a little time in the kitchen to please yourself and your loved ones with delicious mushroom dishes.
