Oyster mushrooms: how to clean before eating and freezing

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

What kind of mushrooms are oyster mushrooms? How to clean them before cooking? Where to look? Today we will just consider this topic. Mushrooms with this gentle name are now becoming incredibly popular. Dishes with their addition are popular with the most picky gourmets. But before you cook any of these gifts of nature, it is important to learn how to peel oyster mushrooms correctly so that they please the tasters, and not become a subject for chagrin and disappointment.

Where can I get these mushrooms?

The best option is to get them yourself in the forest. Their places of deployment are drying trees. Fallen trunks. These mushrooms begin to germinate right on the bark.

Do you like to experiment and grow mushrooms on your own? There is nothing easier. In the conditions of a summer cottage, they grow well on straw from cereals and in sunflower husks.

But if you cannot be classified as an avid mushroom picker, then in this case you can simply buy them in a large supermarket. On sale todayit is easy to find oyster mushrooms fresh and frozen.

Usefulness of the product

Before you buy and clean oyster mushrooms to prepare a delicious dish, let's get acquainted with their positive and negative sides. Good points:

• Mushrooms are low in calories, but can dull the feeling of hunger.
• The composition is replete with such mineral components as calcium, iodine, iron.
• Vitamins: C, B, E, PP - are found in large quantities in mushrooms.
• Remove radiation from the human body.

Nuances are not cons

These mushrooms have a drawback. You need to know about this before peeling oyster mushrooms. Mushrooms do not have a strong aroma. In general, when these gifts of nature are being prepared, you, not having a very sensitive sense of smell, can only barely catch their aroma. Some tasters don't like it.

And here is one more nuance and you need to remember it before peeling oyster mushrooms. It is not negative or positive. It is worth accepting it as a fact. Mushrooms are covered with a thin chitinous coat. And the human body can not cope with the digestion of the chitinous layer. But this does not mean that you need to push the idea of \u200b\u200bpreparing a mushroom delicacy. It is enough to fry finely chopped mushrooms well at the end of cooking and the cut will collapse on its own.

Cleaning rules: dry, preliminary method

Do I need to clean oyster mushrooms purchased at the market or self-collected in the forest?Certainly! But before the procedure itself, it is important to remember these rules:

1. Don't let laziness get the better of you. After arriving from the forest (or from the market), from where you delivered a certain amount of these mushrooms to your home, you should not forget about them for a long time. After a short rest, you need to immediately begin to free them from debris, sand and other inedible inclusions.
2. How to peel fresh oyster mushrooms from the forest? We spread it on a dry plane and first remove dry, well-disposed debris: twigs, leaf scraps, straw or grass.

Cleaning water

After dry cleaning, you can proceed to more drastic measures:

1. Pour for twenty minutes with water (cold and clean) to remove the remaining debris. We remove everything that does not depart from the fungus with our hands. It is allowed to use sponges made of fine foam rubber, they will help to delicately remove dirt from the caps.
2. Cut off the tip of the mushroom leg. After all, there, as a rule, there is an area that is difficult to completely clean from inclusions of dust and bark.
3. Now we rinse all the mushrooms under the tap. Pour clean cold water again. Add s alt and, having dissolved it, place peeled oyster mushrooms in water. The procedure is aimed at preventing the darkening of the pulp of peeled mushrooms.
4. Now take them out of the water and cook as you like, based on the recipe.

An important condition when cleaning oyster mushrooms is to act gently and slowly. The fact is that any careless movement can destroy the integrity of the mushroom cap. Oyster mushrooms -a very fragile gift of nature.

Mushroom convenience food

Do I need to clean oyster mushrooms before cooking or can I do this in reserve?

A rich mushroom crop can be prepared and deep-frozen. So, we clean the mushrooms step by step so that at any convenient moment we have an almost finished product:

1. Sorting mushrooms before cleaning.
2. We diligently, but at the same time, carefully wash the forest gifts. We preliminarily keep all oyster mushrooms in a bulky dish generously filled with cold water. Soaking time is not more than thirty minutes. This is enough to soak especially contaminated areas of mushrooms.
3. Now I need a very sharp and clean knife. Use a tool to cut off the stems of the mushrooms. Cut off the dried edges of some specimens. Make sure oyster mushrooms are not prone to wormholes. In addition, there should be no insects in their pulp. Hopelessly damaged copies, of course, are immediately thrown away. The back of the caps may contain dirt and dust. It is removed with a soft brush.
4. Washed mushrooms are meticulously inspected again for spoilage or worm bites. We take out (very carefully) in a colander. We place under a stream of cold water. The remains of sand and dust from the bark, if clogged somewhere, will already be washed away by the pressure of water.
5. Fill the basin with clean s alt water and keep clean mushrooms in it for 10 minutes.
6. We take it out. Wipe them gently. For this delicate procedure, we use multi-layered paper towels. Wet the top and bottom of the mushrooms well.
7. Spread wet mushrooms on a plane and wait 30–60 minutes. During this time, the remaining moisture will evaporate. We pack ready, clean mushrooms in plastic bags and send them to the freezer.

Before using oyster mushrooms, it is enough to boil and fry.