How to dry mushrooms at home

The most pleasant and delicious hotel from the village is still a bunch of fragrant, delicious dried mushrooms. Many city dwellers have a question - do they really know the correct process of choosing and drying mushrooms only in the village? In reality, any person can possess such art, it is only important to follow some simple recommendations. But before you study the main points of drying mushrooms, it is advisable to generally find out what useful qualities and value the prepared food from mushrooms has.

Dried mushroom is an excellent guest on any table, not only due to its properties that are completely preserved during drying - such a product is also much more useful than canned mushrooms. When pickled, the mushroom loses the bulk of its valuable qualities - more than half of the substances evaporate, and in the process of drying this vegetable loses only water from its composition.

The dried product has a very high calorie content, which can reach 250 kcal and higher, but it is hardly worth doubting that its energy value is very high. At the same time, for all the seeming simplicity of the process of drying mushrooms, it requires certain skills, experience and following a number of tips. Only this determines how valuable, tasty, prepared food will be.

Packing by type

Any mushroom picker prefers to pick mushrooms in such a way that as a result a real mushroom assortment of boletus, porcini mushrooms, olives, egg capsules and other varieties suitable for eating that just gets into sight is collected in the basket. With all this set you need to do something in order to somehow prepare a product in the future. And the simplest method is to dry them, but the problem is that not every mushroom is the most useful. Among the whole variety of edible mushrooms, some are suitable for frying, others are for canning, and others are well suited for drying.

What mushrooms to choose for further drying?

The most suitable and universal option is the cep, it is perfect in any finished form. In addition to it, each tubular mushroom can be dried: oily, aspen, boletus. In addition, the tubular variety is also considered noble - it belongs to the "elite" among mushrooms.

Absolutely unsuitable for drying mushrooms that have a plate head. After drying, they begin to bitter more. The list of these mushrooms included chanterelles, russula, honey mushrooms.

Drying Process: Preparation

The first problem faced by a person who wants to dry mushrooms is the following: it is necessary to make sure that the forest mushroom, being initially dirty, turns into a clean one. The fact is that it is undesirable to wet the mushrooms, because this will prolong the drying process for a while due to the fact that the product absorbs excess water. Therefore, the main method of cleaning mushrooms is an ordinary knife. Using it, you need to carefully remove the needles, fragments of leaves and plants from the hat. It is not recommended to touch the peel, because most often the mushroom is dried with it.

The sand present on the legs and hats can be removed with a soft brush that cannot be wetted. The remains of sand are washed off already in the winter, because the dried mushroom is soaked in water before it can be cooked.

Important! Even small mushrooms should be cut into pieces before drying, because various parasites can be found in their body.It often happens that a worm lives in an elastic and integral external vegetable. If you plan to dry the oil, mushrooms or tubular mushrooms, then you need to cut them longitudinally, having previously separated the hat from the mushroom leg.

Boletus is cut in half with a notch across. If a worm or a whole set of different parasites is found inside, then the mushroom should not be dried, regardless of how beautiful it looks.

It is advisable to use a plastic knife. Despite the inconvenience of handling it, such a knife does not lead to the fact that the flesh of the fungus is oxidized. And the oxidation of the legs or caps causes great damage to the taste properties of dried mushrooms.

Drying recommendations

In order for the mushrooms to have a pronounced smell and pleasant taste after drying, it is necessary to follow the following drying rules:

1. A large hat of mushrooms must be cut into several identical fragments.
2. The large legs of some mushrooms are recommended to be cut in the form of washers, the thickness of which does not exceed 2 cm.
3. Drying should begin in natural conditions - under the sun's rays, and the final stage should be carried out in any device that is in the house: oven, oven, microwave.
4. Regardless of the drying method chosen, it is necessary to interrupt the drying about 2-3 times to ventilate the mushrooms.

After the drying process, you need to decide on the container for storing the product. It can be cans made of glass that can be tightly closed, bags of paper or woven fabric, but in no case should you use cellophane.

According to the assurance of mushroom pickers, dried mushrooms can be stored for any amount of time, but it is recommended to use mushrooms for food within a year after drying. Store in a room that is well ventilated.

Methods for drying mushrooms

In open area
The most commonly used drying method is natural drying. But this is feasible under certain conditions, if such an opportunity exists, and weather conditions allow it. Drying mushrooms in a small village or on the balcony of an apartment in a large city is two completely different things.

When drying mushrooms in air, they must be pierced with a strong thread, keeping a small distance between the individual fragments. Then this knit is placed on the most illuminated area. Using gauze or a thin cloth, you can protect the bundle from dust particles and insects.

In the oven
This option is most convenient to use in the city. The oven must be heated to approximately 45 degrees. Mushrooms are arranged on a wire rack, in even rows. Then the raw materials are placed in the oven. Do not close the oven door tightly, otherwise moisture will settle on the walls of the container and the mushrooms may even boil.

After the mushrooms become slightly dried, which will happen in about an hour, you can increase the temperature to 70 degrees and again dry the mushrooms for 4-5 hours. Rotate them regularly to dry evenly.

In the microwave
For such drying, the oven temperature should be set to about 100 degrees, and the mushrooms should be placed inside for no more than 20 minutes. After that, it is necessary to open the oven door so that the moisture evaporates, and after 5-10 minutes, dry again for twenty minutes. A batch of mushrooms can be dried in this way in about an hour.

Over gas stove
This is not the most suitable method, but it is suitable for the lack of other possibilities. It is also suitable only if you do not plan to use the stove for cooking in the next few days, otherwise the mushrooms will be able to absorb the aroma of the products.

Mushrooms must be hung almost under the ceiling, then the burners of the stove are ignited. If you dry them without turning off the gas stove completely throughout the day, the batch of mushrooms will dry in about 2-3 days.

In the Russian oven
Many people sometimes ask if there is a difference between drying mushrooms in the oven or Russian oven. The oven as a separate way of cooking products is fundamentally different from the oven, not only by the method of air supply, but also by the quality of the final result.

After preparation, the mushrooms can be strung on delicate skewers or knitting needles; it is also well suited if the mushrooms are placed with the hat down on the wire rack. According to the ancient tradition, they can be laid out on straw. Raw materials should be decomposed in the oven when the degree drops to 60. If you place the mushrooms in the oven at a higher temperature, then this is fraught with the fact that they will deteriorate.

In order to be able to remove moisture protruding from the mushrooms, the damper must be slightly opened, otherwise the air in the oven will not circulate. Also a specific feature of mushroom drying in the Russian oven is that it is necessary to open the pipe. At the first stages of drying, the pipe should be opened about three quarters, and then it should be closed in stages.

Given that mushrooms can have hats of different sizes, they can dry unevenly, which leads to the need to remove mushrooms that have already dried out from the oven, and continue to dry the batch. Otherwise, the raw materials that have been overdried are poorly processed, and the undried ones can soon go bad.

Mushroom dryer
This method is considered the most "lazy." The most important thing here is not to overdo it with the thickness when slicing mushrooms. The thickness of the strips or washers should not exceed 1 cm, but some mushroom pickers prefer to dry the whole mushrooms. After the time and temperature are set, it remains only to wait until the mushrooms are completely dried and ready.

One of the options is how to dry mushrooms. If you have collected one or another kilogram of fleshy mushrooms, then in a short time they can be dried by crushing them with "noodles". The resulting thin strips must be placed at the same distance from each other on a baking sheet or large dish, then put in a shaded place that is ventilated and regularly turn over. After that, they must be threaded in a forest or thread, hung in a draft (in a place inaccessible to direct sunlight) - preferably under a canopy or roof.

Mushrooms can be dried if their sliced ​​pieces are laid out on a horizontal surface. If the weather is warm enough and the sun constantly affects the mushrooms, then they will dry out in a few days. One way or another, the moisture remaining in the mushrooms will not play a significant role - unfinished mushrooms can always be brought to readiness using an oven.

The selected method of drying ceps directly determines what their taste properties will be after cooking. The most effective way is to dry the mushrooms in the dryer intended for this.

How to determine readiness

In the case when the mushroom can be easily broken, it is not yet ready. Any mushroom that has completely and completely dried can be easily bent, but it is practically impossible to break it due to its high elasticity and lack of moisture.

Also, the dried mushroom has a light color, there are no various spots. The aroma is pleasant, and the mushroom does not look burnt.

Video: a quick and proven way to dry mushrooms