How to freeze porcini mushrooms for the winter

How to freeze porcini mushrooms for the winter? First you need to get them at any cost. Find in the forest, beg for parents, take away from a friend. Any way will do, because cep mushrooms are simply magical. But sometimes in the winter you want not only pickled or salted, but also fresh boletus.

In the store you can buy in winter only oyster mushrooms and champignons, because it is not the season. On the market with grandmothers, the situation is similar. Sometimes they sell whites, but they are already pickled or salted. And who knows where these mushrooms were collected? How are they processed? To be sure that Borovichki will not harm you or your household - we will procure ourselves.

Freezing ceps is a very simple matter, it does not require special expenses or great culinary skills. By following a few recommendations, you can pamper your household in the winter and avoid some mistakes.

Preliminary preparation

The king of mushrooms is rarely found small. Usually a healthy exhibit catches your eye. If you are lucky to become the owner of small mushrooms, you can be glad - there will be less trouble with processing.

So, wealth from the forest was brought home. The next step of most housewives is to pour mushrooms with water. This is the wrong moment to freeze. White wonderful absorb water, it turns into ice and spoils the structure of the fungus. First you need to clean them. No, not a peeler, this is a spoilage of the product. With the most ordinary hands, we carefully remove: specks, blades of grass, leaves. With a sharp knife, cut a thin layer from the bottom of the leg, where the ground remains. She stayed - we twisted mushrooms in the forest, but did not cut, right? To return to an intact mycelium next season, right? Remove all wormholes, scratches, dark places.

And now you can wash it. No, do not soak. Forgot this habit! Recalled only in the case of breasts! And we carefully rinse the porcini mushrooms under running water. We try not to break them, whole beautifully decorate salad or roast. And the plates look much more appetizing when they are from a whole mushroom. Further, the raw materials must be dried. An ordinary thick old towel does an excellent job. Paper, too, will fit perfectly.

How to freeze porcini mushrooms

There are 4 options for the following actions:

• steam
• cook
• fry
• leave raw

Steam processing

Large mushrooms are cut into plates or cubes, sprinkled on a colander or sieve. Then set in a pan, at the bottom of which is poured 3-5 cm of pure water. The whole structure is covered, put on fire. It is boiled at the boil of the liquid for 4-6 minutes. Cool down.

If whole mushrooms are steamed, the processing time is increased to 7-9 minutes.

Tip. Instead of a sieve, any suitable grate can be used. For example, from a double boiler or microwave.

Cooking
It also saves a good place, and also saves valuable cooking time in the winter. It turns out almost a semi-finished home-made!

Fully prepared mushrooms are dipped in boiling water at the rate of 2.5 liters of liquid per 500 g of fresh raw materials. Boil for 2 minutes, recline in a colander and cool. It is chopped. Whole 4 minutes.

Tip. Porcini mushrooms are boiled without salt to maintain juiciness during freezing.

Roasting
The most optimal way. It perfectly preserves the very divine aroma of porcini mushrooms. Allows imagination to work as much as possible in the kitchen after defrosting.

Prepared raw materials are cut in a convenient way.A little vegetable oil is poured into a skillet or stewpan. Which is olive or corn? For traditional Russian cuisine - only sunflower! Mushrooms are heated and poured. Fry until almost dry and lightly browned over medium heat. Cooking time depends on the amount of white and the width of the pan. Cool down.

It’s bad to fry whole porcini mushrooms qualitatively, and the shape is deformed as a result. But we want not only tasty, but also to make the eyes pleasant. Because records - the most optimal.

Another method of roasting is in the oven. A little oil splashes on a baking sheet, mushrooms pour out. Fry until the juice ceases to stand out. Mix several times to evenly brown the mushrooms. But this method is for craftsmen. Because in the oven it’s easy to overdo the mushrooms. Although, who canceled the experiments in the kitchen? Try it, maybe your recipe for frost will be remembered for centuries by many generations.

Tip. Together with mushrooms, you can fry chopped onions or your favorite greens. You get a ready-made filling for pies or kulebyaki.

Freezing fresh
There is no worries at all - just cut it as it is convenient, or leave it whole. There is an option to rinse the raw mushrooms with acidified water (citric acid) so that they do not lose color. But the mushroom is therefore called white because after all the manipulations and thermal treatments, its flesh is still white! The hat, of course, will be brown. Therefore, you can not torment the fungi with acid.

How to store ceps

After one of the methods for preparing mushrooms was selected, and they themselves have completely cooled, they are put away for storage. There are two options: immediately for permanent or with preliminary freezing.

First option. Borovichki are laid out portionwise in sachets or in small trays, hermetically sealed and cleaned in the freezer.

Second: for preliminary freezing, white is first spread on a baking sheet or tray covered with a film, left in the freezer for 3 hours. And only then pour into bags or special containers made of food-grade plastic.

Tip. Use bags to freeze. They are odorless and designed for food. It is better if they are with a special clip or “zip-fastener”.

Useful Tips

1. As little air as possible should remain in the bag, the aroma will be better preserved, and the mushrooms themselves will not be oxidized.
2. Mushrooms absorb odors well. Therefore, a container lid as closed as possible is a guarantee not to taste white with the aroma of dill or raw meat in winter.
3. Fresh, steamed or boiled porcini mushrooms with proper packaging can be stored in the freezer for up to 12 months. Pre-fried - only 8 months. As a rule, so much time is not required. Frost ends much earlier.
4. In order to pamper your home with quality mushroom sauce on a cold winter evening, you can freeze a semi-finished product in advance. Pass the fried and cooled mushrooms through a meat grinder, then put them in bags with a thin layer and freeze. Then, during cooking, it remains only to add cream, herbs and salt.
5. They also do this if the mushrooms during transportation lost their appearance, crumpled, crumbled. Beautiful cubes will not work, so they make minced meat. The color, taste and quantity of nutrients from this will not change.
6. Young strong mushrooms are best suited for freezing. Then after thawing, they will be as fresh. Old flabby mushrooms will remain as lethargic and unappetizing.
7. Some hostesses skip such an important stage as drying. Washed and in the freezer. In winter, the whites get out and ... go after the ax. It is unlikely that one can proceed with the obtained monolithic piece with another tool. And who is to blame? Own laziness.
8. Defrosted semi-finished products must be strictly in the refrigerator, covering with a film. Mushrooms are a tidbit for various pathogenic bacteria. Yes, and the view will be more beautiful with natural thawing. No soaking in water, otherwise all the autumn chores will go down the drain. And it’s better not to defrost at all. Got out of the freezer and immediately to cook. All vitamins and nutritional value will be on your plate, not in thawed water.
9. Do not chop white mushrooms too thin. Half a centimeter - that’s it. Not a rag, but not a huge chunk. Slices of this thickness look very nice in a dish and it’s convenient to eat them.
10. Pre-freezing does not require 3 hours if you have a shock freeze function. When using it, only half an hour is enough for a hard crust to appear on the mushrooms.

How to freeze porcini mushrooms for the winter - you already know. Now in your freezer there will always be yummy to meet unexpected guests or whip up dinner. Of course, if you slightly overcome your laziness in the season.

Video: how to freeze porcini mushrooms