Dry mushrooms
You probably shouldn’t soak it for too long, two to three hours is enough.
There is no need to pour out the water in which the mushrooms were soaked; during cooking, add it to the dish being prepared. For example, in soup, in gravy, what is usually prepared from dried mushrooms.
I love you very much beans with white, dried mushrooms. This is where we need the water in which the mushrooms were soaked. I boil the pre-soaked beans until tender, fry the mushrooms with plenty of onions, mix everything together and add mushroom water. Simmer over low heat for about ten minutes and add finely chopped parsley. You can add a little tomato sauce, but this is not for everyone.
The dish fits very well fast days!!
Dried mushrooms are soaked for 1 - 2 hours in water, or even better, in milk. Do not throw out the water in which you soaked the mushrooms, but strain it to remove any possible debris and cook the mushrooms in the same water so that the mushroom broth is not lost. It is enough to soak porcini mushrooms for only 1 hour and cook for 20 minutes.
Dry mushrooms do not need to be soaked for a long time. I think half an hour is enough. If they are very dry, they will quickly become good in the hot broth. They will straighten out. And if you keep them in water for a long time, they will deteriorate in taste and will give everything back to the water.
Dried mushrooms are soaked for 1 - 2 hours before preparing soup or other dishes. After this it is boiled. If time is pressing and there is no time to wait that long, then you can soak it in water for less - 30 - 40 minutes. You can also determine by eye: if the mushrooms have begun to disperse, then you can start cooking.
You can soak dry mushrooms in water for several (3-4) hours, or you can soak them in salted milk for several hours, then they will become as fresh. There are many recipes for mushroom soups, my favorite is regular mushroom soup without meat (potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms and herbs).
Before cooking mushroom soup, I soak the mushrooms very little, pour water and put the mushrooms in this water, put them on gas, they just start to boil, rinse them three times, immediately drain the water and chop them finely, they are almost soft, after the chopped mushrooms I put it in a saucepan for soup and bring it to a boil, add salt, boil for 20/30 minutes, then add potatoes, carrots, fry onions, cook the whole thing for about 20 minutes, then add rice because pearl barley takes longer to cook, more 10-15 minutes and the soup is ready)) with sour cream it’s very tasty))
Opinions about how long you need to soak dry mushrooms before cooking vary: some say/write that it will be enough to let the mushrooms sit for 30-40 minutes in cold water, others suggest soaking them for a couple of hours, others advise leaving them in water overnight (by the way I would say that’s what my mother did, and I learned the same from her).
And the recipe for a delicious mushroom soup is very simple: the water in which the mushrooms were soaked will go into the broth, if the infusion is not dark and there are no needles, leaves or, in the worst case, sand.
Make a fry of onions, carrots, add mushroom infusion, potatoes, mushrooms to a saucepan with water and cook everything until tender. If desired, you can add rice or pearl barley to the soup for thickness. Serve the soup with sour cream, yum!
It depends on what dry mushrooms you have to soak. For example, I soak porcini mushrooms in hot water for about 15 minutes, they become soft and ready for further cooking. But honey mushrooms, shiitakes, and morels soak a little longer, about 30-40 minutes. In any case, mushrooms will soak faster if you put them in hot water rather than cold.
I usually leave dried mushrooms in warm water for several hours. Then they become soft and tasty. If this is not possible, you need to start cooking urgently, then I pour boiling water over them and let them stand for at least 30 minutes. But I always drain the water, I don’t cook in it, it doesn’t seem clean enough to me.
A delicious mushroom soup is obtained if you add pearl barley to it, in addition to mushrooms, potatoes, onions and carrots. This is the second soup (besides pickle) that I can’t imagine without this grain.
It is necessary to soak dried mushrooms in cold, clean water, and in addition to the time itself, be sure to check them by touch. Make sure that the mushrooms become slightly soft and swollen, as if puffed up a little, then the mushrooms will be ready and you can start boiling or frying them. The mushrooms are soaked for one or two hours. Depending on the variety of mushroom, and the correctness of its drying. Since dried mushrooms, processed sharply at high temperatures, even in an oven or oven, will be the most hard and rough, and then they will take more time to soak. Which can be more than three hours. If the mushrooms are properly dried, then soaking takes place from an hour to two. Well-dried mushrooms are soaked in cold milk, pure product as water, and in addition, it rinses and cleans the mushrooms themselves well, making them tasty, preserving the aroma of the mushrooms. If you soak mushrooms in water, then it is better not to pour out the water, but strain through a sieve or double gauze, and add the strained water to the broth in which the mushrooms or mushroom soup will be cooked. Then the soup will turn out to be very rich, aromatic and tasty. Boil dry soaked mushrooms for thirty minutes. Soak porcini mushrooms for one hour and cook for twenty minutes.
Therefore, you must first fry the onions and carrots, cook potatoes, a little rice with onions and carrots in the resulting broth from the soaked mushrooms for 15 - 20 minutes, and then just add the cooked soaked mushrooms to everything and cook for another 20 minutes. Add bay leaf, peppercorns, and salt two minutes before cooking.
Here is another recipe for mushroom soup that I like: -
Dried mushroom soup with potatoes
Dry mushrooms 50 grams. 3 potatoes. 4 tablespoons butter. 2 tablespoons flour. 2 bay leaves. Greens (parsley, dill). Salt.
Rinse the dried mushrooms well and pour hot, but not boiled, water for 30 minutes (the mushrooms soak faster in warm water, but it’s better if they are in cold water, even twice as long). Then chop the mushrooms and put them in salted water, add the water in which the mushrooms were soaked. Cook until the mushrooms are soft, about 20 minutes, then add the diced potatoes and two bay leaves.
Make a separate fry, in four tablespoons of butter, two tablespoons of flour, and add this dressing to the soup, add two bay leaves (add peppercorns, to taste). And cook for another 5-10 minutes. The soup will be ready, and when serving, sprinkle on top with finely chopped herbs in a mixture of parsley and dill.
The stem of the mushroom is cut at the base or, if the mushroom is not familiar enough, carefully pulled out. The lower part of the mushroom stem is characterized by some signs that allow us to determine its type, in particular, to distinguish fly agaric mushrooms (thickening and ring) from edible mushrooms. Due to its nutritional value, the stem of the porcini mushroom is used entirely for food. The legs of honey mushrooms and variegated umbrellas are distinguished by their viscosity; they can be cut off or broken off from the cap. Not a single mushroom should be abruptly pulled out of the ground, as this causes great harm to the mycelium.
The mushroom basket should be low and wide. In a tall, narrow basket, mushrooms become wrinkled and are difficult to remove. You can also use boxes, but in a mesh or bag, especially made of plastic, the mushrooms crumble.
The knife for picking and cleaning mushrooms should be small and sharp, preferably made of stainless steel. A dull knife only chops mushrooms. In the forest, wormholes and other damaged parts are removed, debris and leaves are removed. At home, they once again carefully sort through the mushrooms, clean them and prepare them for processing.
Sorting by type. It is advisable to process and prepare mushrooms by type, since their taste and cooking methods are different.
If there are few mushrooms, then first of all you should separate mushrooms that can be fried fresh from mushrooms that require heat treatment. It is advisable to distribute the mushrooms by size to facilitate their subsequent processing.
Clearing debris. Needles, leaves, moss and other forest debris are cleaned off with a wide soft brush, cotton swab or soft cloth. Debris adhering to the smooth mushroom cap is scraped off with a knife. From mushrooms that do not require heat treatment, debris is removed especially carefully, cleaning the folds with a brush, since they are often used dry; For frying, drying and baking, unwashed mushrooms are used, or they are quickly washed and immediately dried.
Cleaning with a knife. Using a sharp stainless steel knife, cut out all darkened and softened areas, as well as those parts that are damaged by forest pests. For older tubular mushrooms, the tubular part of the cap is cut out. For some mushrooms that have a viscous stem, it is cut off entirely. For russula, late and granular russula, remove the skin from the cap, starting from the edges, since after heat treatment it becomes slimy.
Washing. You should wash and soak the mushrooms as little as possible. Mushrooms that are used for frying or drying are not washed. Mushrooms used for other types of processing are quickly washed with cold water and placed on a sieve, sieve or flat board to drain. Only mushrooms with an uneven surface - morels, stitches. variegated blackberries, etc. - should be washed longer to remove sand adhering to the folds of the cap.
Soaking. Salted mushrooms or mushrooms that have a bitter taste are soaked to improve their taste, dry mushrooms - to restore moisture in them. The washed mushrooms are placed in cold water and soaked until the desired results are obtained, usually within 2-6 hours. When soaking bitter or salty mushrooms, change the water every hour so that unwanted substances dissolve faster. The water in which dry mushrooms were soaked is used for food along with the substances dissolved in it. After prolonged soaking, especially if the mushrooms are soaked immediately after cooking, many valuable nutrients also dissolve in the water.
Slicing. Washed larger mushrooms are cut into pieces. Porcini mushrooms, champignons, saffron milk caps and russula are consumed together with the stems. To make the prepared dish or canned food look more beautiful, mushroom stems are cooked separately. The mushroom cap is carefully cut into equal pieces - divided into four parts, six parts, etc. The mushroom stem is cut into thin circles, thus breaking the vertically arranged viscous fibers that make it up, and a more tasty mushroom dish is obtained.
Heat treatment. The purpose of cooking mushrooms is to reduce (eliminate) the bitter taste or toxicity. It should be borne in mind that heat treatment reduces the nutritional value of mushrooms and weakens their taste and aroma. Therefore, mushrooms should be used whenever possible without prior heat treatment. In no case should you heat porcini mushrooms, chanterelles, saffron milk caps, champignons, morels, umbrella mushrooms, summer mushrooms and caps. Most russula and rows also do not need cooking. Chanterelles, caps, boletus stems and some other mushrooms become viscous after cooking.
Mushrooms that contain toxic substances soluble in water should be cooked: common strings, russulas that are stinging and brittle, pink volzhankas (volzhanka), yellow and black milk mushrooms. Boil for 15-30 minutes in plenty of water. The broth is drained, as it can cause poisoning in animals.
Because of their bitter taste, many mushrooms require heat treatment: bitter mushrooms, violin mushrooms, real milk mushrooms, camphor, alder, sweetish and non-caustic milk mushrooms, serushkas, white mushrooms, some types of russula, moths, some types of talkers, pigs and many others. It is enough to cook these mushrooms for 5 to 15 minutes so that the bitter taste in them disappears. The unpleasant taste of gall mushroom does not disappear even after cooking.
There are several ways to cook mushrooms:
* Bring water to a boil, add 1/2 tablespoon of salt per liter of water. The mushrooms are dipped in boiling water and kept there for 5-15 minutes, then transferred to cold water so that they cool faster.
* Dip the mushrooms into cold salted water and quickly bring to a boil. After boiling, remove the dishes from the heat and allow the mushrooms to cool in the same water or pour over them with clean water.
After the water is drained, the mushrooms are transferred to a cloth bag or on a sieve to drain the water. It is not advisable to dry mushrooms by pressing firmly, because this removes many valuable substances from the mushrooms.
Blanching. To maintain integrity and elasticity during cold salting and fermentation, mushrooms are blanched. Mainly russula with a large flat cap, as well as saffron milk caps, are subjected to this treatment. The washed mushrooms are thrown into a sieve and scalded with water for a few minutes, dipped in boiling water or kept over hot steam. After such a quick heat treatment, the mushrooms become more elastic and, when placed in a storage container, do not break.
Short-term storage of fresh mushrooms. If it is not possible to process the mushrooms on the same day, they are stored for one night (no more!) peeled, but not washed or cut. The mushrooms are placed in a wide basket or some kind of flat dish and stored openly in a cool room with plenty of air access: in the basement, barn, corridor, etc. A very good storage place is a refrigerator with a temperature of +2--+6°. Mushrooms to be cooked can be filled with cold water. The soaking container should be wide and low. Before processing, the mushrooms should be carefully sorted again and any damaged parts that may have occurred during storage should be removed. Previously unnoticed individual wormholes, softened spots and other damage can increase so much during storage that most mushrooms become unfit for consumption.
Before salting, mushrooms are washed and soaked in running water. When soaking them in barrels, a wooden grid is placed at the bottom. Mushrooms are poured with cold water with the addition of a small amount of salt. A circle is placed on top and a small weight is placed so that they do not float up. The barrels are placed in a dark, cool place. The water is changed 2 times a day. Soaking continues for 2-3 days. The milk mushrooms are soaked for up to 5 days until they become elastic. In warm weather, mushrooms should not be soaked for a long time, as they may spoil.
The soaked mushrooms are thrown on a screen and, after drying, they are salted. They are placed in a barrel with the legs up in layers of 5-8 cm. Each layer is sprinkled with salt and spices (Table 3). Salt is poured into the bottom of the barrel and on top of the mushrooms; you can add blackcurrant leaves, dill, and garlic. Filled with mushrooms, the barrel is covered with a lid and a load (8-10 kg) of clean stones, washed and scalded with boiling water, is placed. It is not recommended to use metal objects, bricks, or limestones as oppression. After 2-3 days, when the mushrooms in the barrel have settled, the brine covering the lid is drained, the dill and currant leaves are removed and the mushrooms are added. Then they are closed again and pressed under pressure. This is repeated until the mushrooms stop settling and the barrel is filled, the weight of oppression is constantly increased and brought to 25 kg. After this, add 4.5% salt solution to the top and seal. This method of salting is called cold. The pickling process lasts depending on the type of mushroom.
|
Bay leaf, g |
Blackcurrant leaf, kg |
Dill, without seeds, kg |
Crushed black pepper, g |
|
The saffron milk caps are thoroughly washed from sand, leaves, grass residues and other impurities, thrown on a screen and scalded with boiling water 2-3 times or kept in hot water for 10 minutes. Then they are quickly cooled with water on a screen, placed in barrels and sprinkled with salt and adding only crushed hot pepper. All other lamellar mushrooms are washed and placed for 5-8 minutes in a cauldron with a boiling 2-3% salt solution on stainless steel meshes or in baskets made of peeled willow twigs. Cook for 25-30 minutes. The foam that appears during boiling is removed. Then the mushrooms are thrown on a screen and doused with clean water several times until they cool. Not. You should cook several portions of mushrooms in the same solution, as they darken and the bitterness is not completely removed from them.Saffron milk caps are ready for consumption after 5-6 days, milk mushrooms should be kept for 30-35 days, volushki - 40, valui - 50.Another method of salting is used only for saffron milk caps. Mushrooms are not washed or soaked, but wiped with a clean cloth. The salting process is the same as with the cold method.In hot weather, mushrooms may turn sour when soaked, so they are hot-pickled. With this method, the bitterness is removed from the mushrooms faster, they acquire elasticity and are better preserved during transportation.
If not everyone, then very many people love mushrooms. However, their season is quite short. Therefore, thrifty connoisseurs of nature's gifts prudently dry their prey in order to feast on it until the next harvest. Knowing how to cook dried mushrooms, you can enjoy mushroom dishes even in the dead of winter. And they will be no different from those prepared from fresh product.
How to cook dried mushrooms
Drying is used in soups, main courses, and sauces. And it will be appropriate everywhere, if only you follow some simple rules.
The most basic of them: before preparing dishes from dried mushrooms, the latter need to be soaked. Different cooks call the soaking time differently. Someone insists on an hour - they say that's enough. Some people think that they should be filled with water in the evening, but they can only be cooked in the morning. But most cooks recommend soaking for a couple of hours.
The water is taken cold and poured so that even the edge of the mushroom does not protrude to the surface. It’s even better to pour too much: the mushrooms will swell.
Attention, special feature!
There is a subtlety in how to properly cook dried porcini mushrooms. Experts insist that boletus mushrooms should be soaked not in water, but in milk, and not in cold, but warm. Then the final dish will be especially aromatic, and its taste will acquire a refined tenderness.
This move can probably be applied not only to porcini mushrooms. If you are not inclined to skimp on trifles, you can try soaking any variety of mushrooms in milk. And compare with a control batch kept in water.
How long to cook dried mushrooms
After soaking, the product must be boiled. Even if your future plans include fried potatoes with mushrooms. Or even just fried mushrooms. Cooking time directly depends on the type of forest harvest and its size. It can range from 20 minutes to an hour. It’s easier to focus on the “behavior” of the mushrooms: if they sink to the bottom, then it’s time to take them out.
Note: if after soaking there is no debris left in the water and no sediment has appeared, it should be used for the broth, so it will turn out much tastier.
Just soup
There are many ways to prepare dried mushroom soup. For the basic recipe, in addition to the actual drying, potatoes, carrots and onions, you only need spices and herbs.
Mushrooms, soaked and boiled according to all the rules, are caught from the fish soup and cut if they have “grown” significantly in size during processing. Frying is done in vegetable oil: first, chopped onions are browned, then carrot cubes are added to it, and finally mushrooms. After five minutes of frying together, the vegetables are laid out in the mushroom broth, and the soup is added with salt. As soon as it boils, add chopped potatoes, and after ten minutes the fire can be turned off. You can pour it into plates after a quarter of an hour, when the dish has steeped. Serve sprinkled with chopped herbs.
Cheese soup
One of the best options for preparing mushroom soup from dried mushrooms. The main component is soaked, boiled, and crushed. The mushroom broth is salted and potato cubes are dropped into it. While it is boiling, fry the chopped onion, and later add mushrooms to it. The frying is added to the pan, and vermicelli is poured in almost immediately (it is better to take small ones). When it is almost ready (check the instructions on the package for cooking time), add processed cheese. Stir the soup until the last component is completely dissolved. Before serving, the soup is infused in a saucepan with a lid for 5-10 minutes.
For starters - chicken and mushrooms
Having figured out in detail how to cook dried mushrooms, you can use your culinary imagination and get creative. For example, treat the family to soup with forest products and chicken.
The broth is made from either a whole bird or its parts. Only the breast is not recommended: it will not be rich. To increase the dietary content, you can drain the first water and cook the soup on the second.
Mushrooms are boiled separately; If desired, you can add the broth to the broth later. The frying is prepared traditionally, from onions and carrots. There is no need to add mushrooms to them: they are cut and immediately thrown into the broth. The chicken is first pulled out of it, disassembled into pieces and returned back. All that remains is to add the frying, salt and pepper. There are no potatoes in this recipe, so the soup turns out light, although hearty thanks to the mushrooms.
Bean option
To make this soup, you need to soak both the mushrooms and beans separately. Then cook them separately as well. Chopped onions are fried in a frying pan (there should be a lot of them) with mushrooms added to them after they have acquired a “tan.” Next, the contents of the frying pan and the beans are transferred to the broth cooked in advance, and the soup is cooked for another ten minutes so that its ingredients are saturated with each other’s taste. After removing the pan from the stove, add the greens to the dish.
Soup with dumplings and mushrooms
The recipe is multi-step, and the result is incredibly tasty. This time we won’t cook the mushrooms, we’ll just soak them, cut them and fry them until golden. When soaked, there should be 250 grams of them per two-liter pan of soup.
Next step: boil four large potatoes and puree them. When it has cooled, beat in the egg, add four tablespoons of flour and make dumplings.
Step number three: fry an onion and a small carrot. Each housewife decides individually whether to cut or grate the root vegetable.
Fourth stage: sort out a third of a glass of buckwheat and dry-fry it a little.
At the last stage of preparation, all preparations need to be collected into a single dish. Buckwheat is first poured into boiling water, after ten minutes mushrooms and dumplings are loaded, after another five - frying, peppercorns and bay leaves. Five minutes of waiting - and lunch is ready.
Delicacy soup
Traditional first courses, even varied ones, become boring over time. If you want something hot and liquid, but are already tired of the “standard”, try making a light and unusual soup using this recipe.
It is better to take dried mushrooms either porcini or a set of different ones, so to speak, a mix. They are soaked, boiled and cut not too finely. Prepare more mushrooms, because besides them there will be practically nothing else in the soup. At the same time, a strong broth is cooked. Beef is recommended, but experiments are not prohibited. The main component is put into the base, and the broth boils for some time along with the mushrooms to absorb their aroma. When the result satisfies the cook, a dessert spoon of wine is poured into the pan and a small spoon of sugar is added. At the same stage, the soup is salted and peppered, and you need to add a little more pepper than you are used to. Beat eggs well in a bowl, at the rate of two eggs per liter of broth. They are introduced into the soup in a thin stream, with constant stirring. It should be eaten with plenty of greens and sour cream. Wine will give the dish an elegant tartness, and sugar will add piquancy.
How about frying?
That we are all about soups and soups. Since it’s no secret to us how to cook dried mushrooms, it’s time to remember the second courses. Mushrooms fried with onions will be an excellent side dish for meat and poultry. To do this, the soaked dried meat needs to be boiled, but less time is allocated for this stage - about ten minutes after boiling. Then the mushrooms are strained out of the liquid as much as possible - just enough time to cut the onion into half rings.
Now you need to melt the butter in a frying pan - it is ideal for realizing your idea. Onion chips are first fried on it, and after it is browned, strained mushrooms are fried. It is necessary to fry with intense stirring, since butter has less resistance to sticking than vegetable oil. At the very end, the mushrooms are salted, peppered and flavored with selected spices.
Don’t deprive yourself of gastronomic pleasure because it’s “out of season,” since cooking dried mushrooms is no more difficult than fresh ones.
The long-awaited autumn has come again, and in forests, plantings or shelterbelts you can more and more often find people wandering with a basket in their hands. These are mushroom pickers. The canning of tomatoes and cucumbers is already behind us, and now people are wandering around in search of mushrooms in order to prepare at least some tasty salads or snacks for the winter. There are different types of edible mushrooms, there are a lot of them, but milk mushrooms are very prized among mushroom pickers. They grow everywhere, and there are practically no people who are not familiar with these mushrooms. That's why there is huge interest in them. There are many varieties of milk mushrooms: black milk mushrooms, white milk mushrooms, squeaky milk mushrooms and others. All of them are considered conditionally edible mushrooms. When raw, they taste very bitter and disgusting, although after skillful preparation you can eat them with great appetite. Proper preparation of such mushrooms begins with cleaning and subsequent soaking. How to clean them? How long should they be soaked before salting for the bitterness to disappear? Do they need to be boiled? For processing milk mushrooms, unlike other mushrooms, there are rules.
Cleaning milk mushrooms
Place them in a metal or plastic container, then fill them with water. Cleaning begins about twenty minutes after pouring: during this time, the dirt particles will loosen a little, the stuck leaves and insects will fall off.
Clean each mushroom separately. Having taken it out of the container with water, carefully inspect it. If the mushroom is old or wormy, then it is simply thrown away (experienced mushroom pickers do this in the forest: they rake up the foliage, place the unusable mushroom on the ground and rake it back with leaves, this method preserving the spores for the next generation of mushrooms). If the mushroom is good, then the debris is removed from its cap and the dirt is scraped off with a knife, usually along with the film. Then the stem of the mushroom is cleaned. Often, skilled people use other tools instead of a knife, for example, a hard toothbrush. The quality of cleaning with a brush is, of course, much better than with a knife, but it takes more time.
The next cleaning process is the removal of the plates. The plates of small mushrooms cannot be removed. Only large ones are removed. To do this, cut off a thin edge along the entire circumference of the cap, which is slightly turned inward in milk mushrooms. If you do not cut it, then when scraping the lamellar mass it will still break off, only there will be more mess. The plates are removed with a knife in the direction from the leg to the edge. The milk mushroom, cleared of debris and plates, should be rinsed with clean water and placed in a previously prepared container in which you are going to soak. But it is better if the mushrooms are cut into slices: they are less bulky and the bitterness is better removed from them.
How are milk mushrooms soaked?
All types of milk mushrooms, except white ones, contain toxic substances (albeit in very small quantities) that are not noticeable to the taste, so these mushrooms need to be soaked much more. This should under no circumstances be neglected. There were cases when people, having whipped up very tasty dishes from milk mushrooms, were still poisoned even with such a low content of toxic substances. Such cases are rare, but they should not be allowed to happen. Better to play it safe. Because of this, all milk mushrooms, except white ones, can be soaked before salting according to one rule - keep them in lightly salted water for two or three days, changing it at least twice a day. For these purposes, you must use wooden or enamel dishes. When using, for example, aluminum pans or basins, some kind of chemical reaction is possible (aluminum + salt + some kind of secretion from mushrooms, and it is unknown what may result). Oak barrels are usually used as wooden utensils. In villages, they process and store everything they can: tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, apples. Mushrooms are no exception either.
In warm water and with frequent changes, all mushrooms are soaked much faster, but at the same time they have a chance to spoil faster. If, for example, you do not change the water on time, it may turn sour, and then after a short time the milk mushrooms will become unsuitable for food. To avoid this, an enhanced salt regime is necessary. Of course, it takes a lot of salt, but it’s worth it. But here the owner himself knows how much salt to pour, how much water to pour, and whether he should use this method.
Before you start soaking, you need to make sure that all the mushrooms are completely immersed in water, otherwise those on top will very quickly change their color. Perhaps the taste will not be lost because of this, but using these milk mushrooms for food is already a little scary.
Even in the old days, residents of villages near which there were bodies of water with running water (rivers, streams) used this method for soaking: collected and already cleaned milk mushrooms were put in a nettle bag and lowered into a river or stream. This bag was there for as long as it took to completely soak the mushrooms - three days. They periodically approached him, corrected him, checked him. After the required period, the milk mushrooms could be processed further - boiled or salted.
Many people washed milk mushrooms in stagnant water (lakes, ponds). To do this, the same bag of mushrooms was hung from a branch of a willow or some other tree growing near the water. They hung it so that the bag was completely submerged in water. In windy weather, a tree branch sways and “drives” the bag in different directions, thereby washing away all the discharge from the mushrooms.
The white milk mushroom (also called the royal mushroom) is the “cleanest” of the milk mushrooms in terms of toxicity. Therefore, the requirements for it are not very strict. It is enough to keep it in clean water for 10-15 hours. Those. If you put it on the soak in the evening, then in the morning it will be quite suitable for cooking. When draining the water, you need to pay attention to what color it is. If the process was completed correctly, the drained water should be slightly dark, but clear. You can break off a piece of mushroom and taste it. There should be no feeling of bitterness. This mushroom is usually salted, because when salted it perfectly preserves both the mushroom smell and its original appearance, and its taste cannot be compared with pickled mushrooms.
A black mushroom, no matter how much you soak it, will remain black. Even if you change the water very often, the water does not become lighter with each cycle. But this does not mean that soaking did not take place: this mushroom simply has a lot of coloring enzymes that have nothing to do with toxicity. Black milk mushroom is a very tasty mushroom. It is pleasant to eat it both fried and salted. Pickled black mushrooms are tasty, but not beautiful, and have an unappetizing appearance, so such mushrooms are rarely pickled. Very often this mushroom is used when preparing salads, because... It doesn’t need to be cooked for long, and it fits perfectly into the recipe for this dish.
The creaking milk mushroom is common throughout central Russia. It also has a white color, but, unlike the royal milk mushroom, it contains a lot of bitterness, and it is considered the most bitter mushroom of the milk mushroom family. Despite the fact that a white liquid, similar to milk, is abundantly released from its pulp in air, the water turns reddish when soaked. After the first days, the taste is not worth trying - the bitterness is terrible. Only on the third day, after draining the reddish water and tasting it, do you notice that it is no longer so bitter. Only on the fourth day can you be satisfied with the quality of soaking.
This mushroom, the squeaky milk mushroom, is almost never used in its salted form. Apart from the taste of salt, you won’t notice anything in it. There's not even a mushroom smell. If, for example, other mushrooms can simply be fried or boiled, then this milk mushroom is not suitable for that either. But in a marinade it is an excellent dish. Despite the fact that it is subjected to hot processing, the taste and stock are preserved perfectly.
Result:
As a result, it must be said that the most important thing when collecting mushrooms, including milk mushrooms, is to know what mushrooms to collect, what to do with them, how to process them. You can read as much as you like about all these wisdom in books and on the Internet, but this is just help. The main work is wandering through the forest, collecting, doubtfully examining every mushroom found. Over time, experience comes, and the worries associated with collecting, cleaning, and soaking turn into annoying, but very pleasant chores.
