With the beginning of cool autumn days, residents of cities and villages, lovers of quiet hunting, have a question about how to store honey mushrooms. After a rainy summer, the harvest of these mushrooms is especially abundant; they grow in entire colonies. Mushroom pickers know that after harvesting, it is not always possible to quickly process them.

How to preserve mushrooms before processing?

Any cut mushrooms, especially lamellar ones, can form toxic substances when stored in fresh. Therefore, they need to be recycled as soon as possible. How long can fresh honey mushrooms be stored if there is not enough time to preserve them on the same day?

Even in the refrigerator, mushrooms brought from the forest can last no more than 6-8 hours. It is best to start processing them immediately upon returning from the forest, taking into account that some time has already passed after collection.

For pickling and pickling, it is better to collect young honey mushrooms with unopened caps. They will be the most delicious and tender with this method of preparation. Large specimens with umbrella-like caps can be preserved differently.

Having quickly disassembled and cleared the mushrooms of debris, you can immediately begin the hot salting or pickling method. To do this, boil water in a large container while sorting occurs. By the time the liquid boils, all that remains is to place the washed mushrooms in a saucepan, boil for 20-25 minutes and marinate, adding salt, spices and vinegar to taste.

While the process of canning selected small mushrooms is taking place, large ones can be stored in the refrigerator. After finishing the pickling work, you need to continue processing the remaining part of the crop.

How to prepare honey mushrooms for the winter?

Storing honey mushrooms in winter is only possible in processed form. But jars of marinades and pickles should not sit in a warm pantry for more than 4-5 months. The shelf life of pickled mushrooms in the refrigerator or cold cellar is 6-12 months.

Not all honey mushrooms are suitable for pickling and pickling. What can be made from high-quality, but slightly overgrown honey mushrooms? It turns out that there are many ways to process and store even such tough and not very pleasant-tasting mushrooms:

1. Freezing allows you to preserve all the valuable substances and taste of honey mushrooms. After thawing, the mushrooms resemble fresh ones and can be used to prepare soups, caviar, stir-fries and other dishes where they originate. cooking. Before placing honey mushrooms in the freezer, they should not be washed, otherwise they will freeze into a monolith during storage. Frozen mushrooms are stored for 6-8 months.
2. Freezing with pre-boiling allows you to reduce the cooking time for dishes with mushrooms. Boiled honey mushrooms are drained in a colander to remove liquid and cool, and then placed in containers or bags. They can be stored in the freezer for about 1 year without loss of taste and beneficial qualities.
3. It is very convenient to store fried mushrooms. To make canned food, before processing, you need to wash and cut the caps of large honey mushrooms. You can fry them in ghee, lard or vegetable fat. The taste of the preparations will be different depending on the added spices. Fried mushrooms laid out in sterile jars and filled with fat in which the processing took place. The jars are immediately closed or rolled up. Heat does not leave microorganisms a chance to survive, so such canned food can be stored in the refrigerator or cellar for up to 12 months.
4. Even large mushrooms with hard legs can be processed. Cooked delicious caviar Honey mushrooms can be stored in a cold place for the winter for 5-6 months. It is very convenient to add to prepared dishes, serve as independent snack to potatoes. A sandwich with caviar made from mushrooms ground in a meat grinder is a self-sufficient breakfast.

Even slightly overripe honey mushrooms can be stored for the winter in the form delicious canned food or frozen. If they already have hard legs, then only the caps are used for the blanks. The fibrous parts can be boiled and passed through a meat grinder along with the mushrooms selected for caviar.

How to dry and preserve honey mushrooms?

A special way to store mushrooms is drying. During this process, almost all moisture is removed from the fruiting bodies. As a result, their shelf life increases, reaching 2-3 years. But dried honey mushrooms themselves need proper storage.

For drying, you need to select medium-sized mushrooms that have opened. Before drying traditional way You should very carefully select healthy and worm-free specimens. Drying occurs on outdoors, in conditions room temperature, so mold or worms can move onto healthy mushrooms.

Mushrooms take several days to dry, depending on external conditions. Readiness can be determined by appearance and the fragility of the caps: dried honey mushrooms become dark, and their caps easily break with a characteristic crack.

Drying can also be done in special dryers. In these devices, the baking tray with mushrooms is heated to 50°C or more. The process is much faster, and before full readiness It only takes a few hours.

Store dried mushrooms in linen bags in a completely dry place. At high humidity, honey mushrooms absorb water vapor and can become moldy. At long-term storage they need to be checked for moisture from time to time: if the caps have lost their fragility and become plastic, then the entire batch should be dried in the oven at a temperature of +70°C.

Video recipes

We offer several video recipes tested by mushroom lovers.

Pickled

How to quickly clean small mushrooms

Dried in jars

Three types of honey mushroom caviar

Undoubtedly, collecting honey mushrooms in the forest is a pleasant and exciting experience. Many mushroom pickers have long appreciated the merits of these mushrooms, which means they will never pass them by. One of the main advantages of honey mushrooms is that they grow in large groups. This is very convenient, because you don’t need to make an effort to find them in the forest. In one small area - a stump or tree - you can collect several baskets of forest “gifts” at once. In addition, for their taste, honey mushrooms lend themselves perfectly to various culinary processes. In addition to everyone's favorite fried potatoes with mushrooms and mushroom soups, honey mushrooms can be prepared wonderful snacks, pates, sauces, cutlets, and also preserve them for the winter.

However, along with a pleasant time in the forest and a rich mushroom harvest, every lover of “quiet hunting” is faced with the task of conducting a thorough primary processing. How to clean and wash honey mushrooms before different ways processing?

Cleaning and processing honey mushrooms

To know how to properly clean and wash honey mushrooms, you need to decide what you will use them for in the future - for cooking or preserving them for the winter? Thus, the cleaning method for all processing methods boils down to the following:

• The mushroom harvest should be sorted out and all blackened, rotten and wormy specimens should be discarded. Small and strong ones are best used for pickling and salting, while broken and large ones can be used for caviar, frying, sauces, pates, etc. Sometimes it happens that the stem of the fruiting body is intact and strong, but the cap is severely damaged. In this case, they can be separated from each other and good part use for cooking;
• Before washing honey mushrooms after forest, you must first remove heavy dirt from them. It is better to do this with an ordinary kitchen knife or a dry sponge. Usually, little forest debris collects on honey mushrooms, since they grow on stumps, fallen branches or trees, and not on the ground. It’s enough just to take a good look at them and cut off all damaged areas, if any;
• then cut off the edges of the legs, because they are too tough, which means that a “traveling” dish with their participation will not work.

Many housewives are interested in: Should I remove the skirt from the stem of the mushroom before washing fresh honey mushrooms? It should be said that here everyone decides for himself. There is an opinion that the skirt framing the leg of the honey mushroom adds bitterness to the dish, but this is not so. Most mushroom pickers don’t even bother removing this film, believing that it’s simply a waste of time and effort.

How to wash autumn, summer and winter honey mushrooms

Does it matter how to wash honey mushrooms? various types? Thus, autumn, summer and winter honey mushrooms, although they differ from each other in appearance and season of growth, are still washed after cleaning in almost the same way. The only thing is that winter mushrooms do not need to be soaked, because they are considered one of the purest representatives of their kind. Sometimes in the winter forest these fruiting bodies are found literally under the snow. They are practically not cleaned of adhering dirt and debris, but simply cut off the tips of the legs. After that, winter mushrooms are rinsed in water for several minutes and cooking begins.

How to wash honey mushrooms of autumn and summer species? Here everything will depend on the further processing method. Traditionally, both types require the same cleaning and rinsing methods. Thus, fruit bodies need to be soaked after sorting and cleaning. Soaking should take place in cold salted water (for 1 liter of water you need to take 1 tbsp. table salt). Salt helps open the pores of the mushroom and remove small grains of sand. And if there are insects or worms in the fruiting body, they will simply float to the surface. Soaking time ranges from 30 to 90 minutes. After that, you should rinse the honey mushrooms under the tap and start cooking. As you can see, washing honey mushrooms of summer, autumn and winter species is quite simple if you follow the tips given.

How to wash honey mushrooms before frying, boiling and freezing

Fried mushrooms - very popular dish, especially if it is honey mushrooms. them in fried can be combined with various vegetables, and also prepare for the winter. How to properly wash honey mushrooms after cleaning, so that you can then fry them deliciously? For this processing process, you need to rinse the prepared mushrooms in cool water, and then dry them on a kitchen towel or leave them in a colander to drain off excess liquid. If the fruiting bodies are large, then it is better to soak them in salted water for 40-50 minutes and then rinse them under the tap.

Most methods of processing mushrooms involve them pre-boiling. In this regard, many novice housewives ask how to wash honey mushrooms before cooking? To do this, after cleaning, the mushrooms should be rinsed under the tap for several minutes and then boiled. You can also soak the fruiting bodies in salted water for half an hour and then rinse again. If you decide not to soak honey mushrooms, but to boil them immediately, then change the water at least 2 times during cooking.

If you want to freeze fresh fruiting bodies for the winter without first boiling, then the contact of mushrooms with water should be minimized. How to wash honey mushrooms before freezing fresh? First of all, remember that you need to use only whole, strong, young and undamaged specimens. After cleaning, they should be rinsed literally for a minute under running water and dipped in boiling water for 20-30 seconds. If you want to prepare boiled honey mushrooms for the winter, then wash them using the method mentioned above.

How to wash honey mushrooms before pickling and salting

How to wash honey mushrooms before pickling and salting? To do this, after cleaning, immerse the fruiting bodies in a deep container with warm water, leave for 20-30 minutes, then rinse them. Change the water in the container and immerse the honey mushrooms there again. After 15-20 minutes, transfer them to a sieve or colander and let drain excess liquid. Next, feel free to proceed to heat treatment before marinating and salting recipes.

Some housewives prefer to use the cold method of pickling fruit bodies, which eliminates pre-boiling. In this case, you need to soak the honey mushrooms after cleaning for 9-15 hours, then rinse under the tap and dry. Important: for cold salting, you should also use only young and strong specimens.

We invite you to watch a video showing how to wash honey mushrooms after forest:

How to properly store washed mushrooms

Honey mushrooms – perishable product, so it cannot be stored fresh for a long time. How to store washed mushrooms after cleaning and where? It is better to immediately put fresh fruiting bodies into use and prepare some kind of dish from them. However, if for some reason this cannot be done, then put the mushrooms in the refrigerator for storage for no more than 7-10 hours. At the same time, cover the storage container cling film, otherwise the mushrooms will absorb foreign odors.

If you want to preserve honey mushrooms after collecting them in the forest, you can use the freezer compartment of a household refrigerator at home. Before freezing, mushrooms are pre-prepared by washing them and clearing them of dirt. You can add them either fresh or after frying or boiling. Preparation homemade according to all the rules, it will not take much time, and the product will retain its taste.

Freezing

After collecting fresh honey mushrooms in the forest, having previously prepared them, they can be placed in the freezer. If it is not possible to process them immediately, the mushrooms should only be kept in the refrigerator. Then they should definitely be frozen or preserved. Storing honey mushrooms more than a day after collection without processing it is prohibited, as they begin to produce toxins. Mushrooms are prepared for placing in the chamber in the following way:

1. 1. Cut honey mushrooms are washed well in cold water and clean.
2. 2. Dry them on a paper towel.
3. 3. Honey mushrooms are cut into plates or cubes.
4. 4. Blank in small portions placed in food bags or in containers and placed in a chamber.

Optimal storage temperature fresh mushrooms should be below -18 degrees. IN freezer the product can lie for 6-8 months without loss taste qualities. You can also add whole mushrooms without cutting them.

Boiling

Since honey mushrooms cannot be stored for a long time after collection, even in the refrigerator, it is better to prepare something from them on the very first day. For example, the product can be boiled and then frozen. The output will be a semi-finished product, which will only have to be taken out of the chamber and added to the dish being prepared. Processing stages:

1. 1. First, the mushrooms should be thoroughly washed and cleaned, and the caps should be cut off from the stems.
2. 2. Before cooking, you can store honey mushrooms in the refrigerator, but only dry.
3. 3. The boiled one is discarded in a colander.
4. 4. When the workpiece has dried a little, it is placed in containers or food bags in small portions that can be used at a time and frozen.

Boiled mushrooms can not spoil in the chamber for up to 8 months.

Roasting

In this way you can prepare independent dish, which will only have to be heated in microwave oven and serve or add to the first or second course when cooking. It will take a little more time to prepare, but it is quite convenient for further use. Can be stored in the refrigerator fried product 3 days. Sequencing:

1. 1. After collection, honey mushrooms are washed and cleaned well.
2. 2. Cut into plates.
3. 3. Fry in a frying pan in vegetable oil.
4. 4. When the product has cooled, it is transferred to containers or food bags.
5. 5. The workpiece is frozen.

Fried mushrooms can be stored in the freezer at temperatures below -18 degrees for up to 8 months.

And a little about secrets...

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In the forest, honey mushrooms are considered the most numerous mushrooms. They usually grow in large groups and are much easier to collect than other types of mushrooms. They are very healthy and are widely used both in food and medicine. The most popular way to prepare them is pickling and salting. Despite their popularity, not many people know how to collect honey mushrooms and then peel them for further preparation.

These “forest inhabitants” grow in almost all coniferous and deciduous forests. Most good timing for their collection is September-October. They grow mainly on tree trunks and stumps, less often on the ground. As a result, they are not so heavily polluted.

The process of preparing honey mushrooms can be very diverse. At the same time, they retain all their vitamins and useful material. In order for them to be most delicious after cooking, you need to know how to properly clean honey mushrooms. Each mushroom picker can tell you several ways, but we will focus on the most popular of them.

How to clean fresh mushrooms

These are not the most difficult mushrooms to clean. This whole process comes down to removing spoiled areas and cutting off long legs, which can be dried and used as an additive to various dishes.

Cleaning mushrooms before cooking

As soon as you bring them home, you immediately need to sort through them, discarding those that are rotten, old or damaged by insects. The following is also removed from the surface:

• sticky leaves,
• grass,
• land.

It often happens that the cart with ordinary mushrooms small ones come in. Cleaning them is very troublesome and takes a lot of time and effort. In this case, you need to immediately decide what you will use them for, and process them based on this. For example, if you decide to dry or freeze them, then you do not need to wash them, but for other uses it is enough to put small mushrooms in salted and always cold water for an hour.

How to clean mushrooms collected in autumn and winter

The process of cleaning and processing honey mushrooms collected in the fall is slightly different from others. This is due to the fact that at this time they can become saturated with water and it will be almost impossible to dry them out. If you do decide to try it, they may become moldy and spoiled. That's why collected in the fall Mushrooms are best used for pickling.

Not everyone knows that honey mushrooms can be collected in winter. This process is complicated by the fact that the mushroom caps are covered not only with small grass, but also with fallen leaves. They freeze to the mushroom, and they can only be separated at home, when all the forest debris has thawed. Winter mushrooms are great not only for pickling, but also for pickling or frying. However, it is worth noting that mushrooms collected during this period cannot be dried.

How to clean birch, scaly and royal

• Oddly enough, in many countries, royal mushrooms are considered inedible and are simply thrown away. With us this type It is prepared in almost the same way as other types. Royal honey mushrooms grow on dead trees and stumps, usually in large groups. They big size, and when cleaning it makes the task easier. All you need to do is remove the scales on the cap and the membranous ring with a knife or other sharp object. After this, the mushrooms are washed in salted water to get rid of sand and other small particles. The best option would be to leave them in water for two hours and then cook them. Without this, you cannot eat this type of mushroom. They are widely used for making soups and for filling pies or pizza.

• Scaly mushrooms have on their caps a large number of scales, and the process of cleaning them is identical to the royal ones. Before frying or stewing them, you need to boil the mushrooms for half an hour.
• Birch mushrooms are great for pickling or pickling. They grow only on birch trees or birch stumps in large groups, and are collected in the summer months. The whole process of cleaning them consists of removing unusable and wormy parts, as well as the filmy ring. Be sure to rinse them in water before cooking.

How to cook honey mushrooms

After soaking the mushrooms in salt water, rinse them well and let them dry a little. For the cooking process you will need enamel pan. We put them there and completely fill them with water. As soon as the water boils, set aside 30-40 minutes and cook them. The larger the mushrooms, the longer they need to be boiled.

How to properly peel for pickling

Before peeling mushrooms for pickling, they need to be soaked for half an hour in warm water. This will simplify the process of processing them. The ring skirt is removed from the mushrooms and most of the stem is cut off. Also remember to remove any unedible parts. Another way to treat them before marinating is to clean them with a kitchen sponge. Since honey mushrooms themselves are clean, this method is quite suitable for processing. Next, the mushrooms are marinated using all known methods.

Rules for cleaning before frying

The process of cleaning honey mushrooms before frying is significantly different from processing before pickling or salting. After they get to your home, they should be carefully sorted and all debris removed from their caps. It will also be a good idea to cut off the tip of the stem and all damaged parts. It happens that there are insects under the cap, so it is worth looking at these places as well. Before frying, mushrooms should not be washed, as they will take on water and lose their shape during heat treatment. You can also pre-boil the mushrooms, but this may reduce their unique taste.

How to properly peel mushrooms before freezing

One of the most popular ways to store mushrooms is to freeze them. Hemp mushrooms are most suitable for it. Their preliminary cleaning must be done in the forest, immediately after collection. It should be noted that honey mushrooms can be frozen not only fresh, but also fried or slightly boiled. In all these options, cleaning is approximately the same. First, all rotten parts of the mushrooms are cut off and the tip of the stem is cut off. Then they are thoroughly washed, laid out and allowed to dry. The last stage freezing will be their distribution and placement in the freezer.

Honey mushrooms are very valuable and healthy mushrooms, and you need to collect them only if you know exactly how to properly process and prepare them. If you are not lazy and do everything correctly, you will be rewarded with a delicious product.

A trip to the forest for honey mushrooms will in any case bring you pleasant emotions, as these mushrooms grow large families and, having found suitable tree, you can quickly fill your basket. Collection is carried out almost all year round, since there are many types of these mushrooms, and they can be collected even in winter. But for this you need not only to know what they look like edible species, but also according to what rules they are collected.

Features and methods of collecting winter, spring and autumn honey mushrooms with photos and videos can be found in this article. It will help experienced mushroom pickers improve their knowledge, and beginners - master the necessary techniques.

With the onset of the first autumn month comes the time to collect honey mushrooms. In conditions of high humidity they grow very quickly. They can be found both in deciduous and mixed forests on stumps and old trees (Figure 1). Although they are small, collecting them is a real pleasure, because they grow in whole families, and you can immediately collect a whole basket of fragrant forest gifts.

Figure 1. Places and rules for collecting honey mushrooms

Sometimes they are hidden under a layer of fallen leaves, and then it becomes more difficult to find them, but how great is the joy of a mushroom picker who discovers a family growing on a stump. Fans of quiet hunting are well aware of the features, conditions and rules of collection, and beginners will find it useful to familiarize themselves with the materials in this article.

Peculiarities

You should know that different kinds can be collected practically all year round except during periods of severe frost. Thus, autumn ones are harvested from August to November, meadow ones - from May to June and from September to October, summer ones bear fruit from August to October, and winter ones - throughout the fall until frost.

Note: You need to look for them in fairly mature deciduous forests, on stumps and trunks of fallen trees, and sometimes on living wood. The exception is meadow, which grow exclusively in open areas among grass. Look for them on forest edges, pastures, fields, and meadows.

When collecting, be careful and remember that along with edible ones, you can also find false ones, some of which are poisonous. To prevent such a specimen from accidentally ending up in your basket, learn to distinguish between real and false specimens (Figure 2).

Here's what you should pay attention to

1. True honey mushrooms grow only on wood, while false ones can also grow on the ground.
2. The caps of false species are painted in bright colors - bright red, greenish-gray, and the plates on their back side have a dark color.
3. The main sign of edibility is the leathery ring on the stem under the cap. False ones have fragments of such a ring, but they are difficult to see. In addition, the cap and stem of a real mushroom are covered with scales, which are completely absent in false ones.

Figure 2. Main differences between true and false species

In addition, real varieties have a pleasant mushroom aroma, while the false ones give off an unpleasant earthy odor.

Conditions

If you want to harvest, go to a forest that is over 30 years old. In such a forest area you can find enough places where honey mushrooms like to grow - rotten stumps, dead trunks, dead wood, protruding tree roots.

When to collect winter and other species? The best time for this they call it early morning, since it is then that they are still fresh and dense after the coolness of the night, which means they are more resistant to transportation and storage.

Methods

When choosing a collection method, you should give preference to those that protect the mycelium from mechanical damage. Therefore, it is unacceptable to pull out mushrooms, because such actions lead not only to damage to the mycelium, but also to its death, as a result of which growth in this area stops.

It is recommended to carefully cut off the stem with a knife or twist the mushroom from the mycelium. However, with the first method there is a risk of infection entering the mycelium through an incised wound on the leg, so it is better to use the second method. When unscrewing the mushroom, it must be rotated around its axis until it easily separates. The hole remaining after such actions must be trampled or lightly dug in.

Rules

To all lovers of “silent hunting”, be it experienced mushroom picker, or beginner, must be followed following rules(Figure 3):

1. You can collect only well-known species. If you have the slightest doubt about its edibility, you should discard it.
2. It is recommended to select young, healthy mushrooms, because they have the ability to accumulate dangerous toxic substances, and therefore you do not need overgrown, wormy, rotten specimens. It is better to hang it on a branch with the cap down so that the wind can carry and disperse its spores for the future harvest. At the same time, mushrooms that are too young and not yet ripe should not be collected. Leave them to other mushroom pickers.
3. Try not to damage the mycelium. Therefore, it is better to twist the tubular species, and break or cut off the lamellar and marsupial species.
4. Having discovered edible mushroom, do not rush to leave this place. Most species grow in whole families, so a careful search can reveal many mushrooms in one place.
5. Remember that mushrooms do not grow in tall grass and windbreaks.
6. When going into the forest, take a basket with you, not a bucket, since mushrooms quickly suffocate in a confined space without ventilation.
7. Before placing your find in the trash bin, clear it of soil and debris. Place them with their caps down or sideways.
8. Don't try to take all the mushrooms from the forest. This is impossible. Raw mushrooms They deteriorate quickly, so they need to be processed quickly.

Figure 3. Collection methods and rules

Do not knock down unfamiliar mushrooms. After all, there may be a mushroom picker who will not only recognize this mushroom, but also pick it up.

Collection of honey mushrooms: video

To learn more about the collection process, we recommend watching the video, which shows where to look for mushrooms, how to distinguish them and collect them correctly.

When to collect winter mushrooms

Most mushrooms are collected in the summer and autumn months. The exception is winter varieties, the harvest of which can be harvested even with the onset of slight cold in December, and in conditions of early and warm spring - in January and March. They appear in the forest in October and can continue to bear fruit until March (Figure 4). It all depends on climatic and weather conditions, since growth stops at temperatures below zero.

Figure 4. Collection of winter species

Confuse winter variety with any other species it is very difficult, since most mushrooms do not tolerate cold weather, and with its onset they die off in their above-ground parts, which means they are simply absent.

When to collect spring honey mushrooms

Spring honey mushrooms are an early species. They can be found in both mixed and coniferous forests on old stumps and protruding tree roots, as well as on damp mossy litter from mid-May to the end of October (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Features of collecting spring species

The largest harvest can be harvested in June-July, when these mushrooms are especially prolific, and since they grow in the low mushroom season, they attract increased interest from mushroom pickers.

Collection of autumn mushrooms: video

The most popular are considered autumn varieties. From the video below you will learn how to collect them correctly and what places in the forest you should inspect to find a rich harvest of mushrooms.