Mushrooms For Frying And Salting

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

What mushrooms are worth picking in the forest. How to salt them for the winter

In Russia, perhaps, mushroom picking is in first place after two other common hobbies - fishing and hunting. Literally every autumn, forests, woods and hills become overly inhabited - hundreds of mushroom pickers rush in search of the cherished and useful delicacy.

Armed with a long stick, they diligently rake the foliage in search of the cherished, strong fruit bodies. The high season of quiet hunting usually falls in mid-August, and this period lasts from early summer to late autumn.

In August, mushrooms are usually harvested for frying, but starting in September, mushroom pickers go in search of mushrooms that are ideal for pickling.

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With fried mushrooms, everything is usually clear: in order to make a good dish, the mushrooms must be picked young, not wormy and without any other damage. They need to be washed and cleaned well, soaked in salted water for an hour or two, just in case, what suddenly pops up, and then you can send them to the frying pan. Honey mushrooms and chanterelles are my favorite fried mushrooms. How good it is to mix them with potatoes and serve such a dish on the table! With kvass - that's it!

But not only these mushrooms are suitable for frying, they are excellent for this type of processing of morels (one of the first mushrooms of the year), pigs and mushrooms. In fact, all small and crunchy mushrooms will be good to fry and delicious to eat. It is quite possible to put boletus mushrooms, boletus mushrooms, boletus and even kids in a frying pan, nothing that they have a sponge - they will certainly be tasty.

But, of course, salting is the crown of mushroom processing. Salted mushrooms are considered a crown Russian delicacy. For pickling mushrooms, you do not need much money or time, and the dish will have the highest taste.

Of course, mushrooms are most delicious in winter, like the rest of the "supplies".

For salting, bitters, russula, volnushki, milk mushrooms and, of course, mushrooms are ideal. Milk mushrooms and mushrooms are Russian national mushrooms and are in great demand among gourmets. From this duo, however, milk mushrooms stand out for their great taste and adaptability to salting. There are several varieties of mushrooms in nature, the most famous, delicious and common are yellow, white and black. All of these types of mushrooms can be found in both mixed and deciduous forests. Their distinctive features are the edges of the cap bent in a semicircle to the bottom and a rather thick leg with a hole, on which milky sap is formed after the cut.

In general, milky juice is a kind of indicator by which one can judge whether this or that mushroom is suitable for pickling. To understand whether the mushroom secretes the lactic acid (a bitter-tasting white liquid), you need to cut or break the stem of the mushroom, and at the site of the cut or break, you should soon see this liquid or not see it.

Do not forget that the milkman is a weak poison. Anyway, therefore, all mushrooms belonging to the category that emit milky juice, at the same time belong to the category of conditionally edible. You shouldn't be intimidated by this name, but you shouldn't be negligent about it either. Such mushrooms can be eaten only after pre-processing, which most often comes down to boiling. Not all mushrooms can be boiled, but as for, for example, bitters, this is simply necessary.

Bitter is perhaps the most common mushroom suitable for pickling. Most often, the natural yield of bitters is calculated in tons. Due to its bitter taste, the mushroom is not of particular value, therefore mushroom pickers collect it only in the most extreme case, preferring others, more valuable. However, this is in vain. Gourmets claim that the salty bitter is in no way inferior to the famous milk mushroom, however, it will not work as hard as a milk mushroom, alas, it will not work.

Bitter mushrooms can be found both in coniferous and deciduous or mixed forests; these mushrooms are very accessible for collection.

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Another mushroom that is suitable for salting is russula. However, there may be problems with the collection. The fact is that the russula is a very fragile mushroom; if it is carelessly handled or placed on the bottom of the basket, it sometimes falls apart into many parts. However, in terms of cooking this mushroom, there are no inconveniences.

Interestingly, russula can really be eaten fresh, and if you decide to salt it, then you should not do any preliminary heat treatment. The russula should not even be soaked before rolling into jars, which should always be done with all milky mushrooms.

Some mushroom pickers, especially beginners, often complain about the presence of bitterness in mushrooms, believing that this problem cannot be fixed. However, this is not at all the case. In order to deprive the fruiting body of the mushroom of bitterness, it is necessary to put the mushrooms for a day or two under oppression. Of course, before that, you need to clean them of dirt, check for pests, place them in a container filled with water, and put a wooden lid on top with a load laid on its surface. If you want the bitterness from the mushrooms to come out as quickly as possible, then do not be lazy and change the water in the container every three hours. Usually, after two days, all the bitterness from the mushrooms leaves, and it will be possible to start canning them.

By the way, not everyone knows that there is not one, but two whole ways of pickling mushrooms - cold (or natural) and hot (the most common). The difference between these two methods is that the second implies mandatory heat treatment. The second method has clear advantages over the first, because after three days the mushrooms can be eaten. Usually, residents of large cities use the hot method, because there is often simply nowhere to store impressive containers for cold pickling of mushrooms. In this container, mushrooms are salted naturally, retaining all their useful qualities and an unusually pleasant taste.

Nikolay Khromov, Candidate of Agricultural Sciences, Researcher, Department of Berry Crops, GNU VNIIS im. I. V. Michurina, member of the R&D Academy

Photo by Olga Rubtsova

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