How long does it take to cook mushrooms?
Very often, novice mushroom pickers ask the question: "How much to cook mushrooms?"
And they are surprised and even offended when they start asking counter questions:
- What mushrooms?
- Why cook?
- Boil in pretreatment or cooking?
Let's figure it out.
1. Edible mushrooms. Do I need to boil edible mushrooms?
Edible mushrooms do not need to be boiled beforehand. You can start cooking them right away. For example, we can fry honey mushrooms, and then they can be immediately, raw, cut and put in a pan, or we can pickle them, and then they are immediately poured with marinade, the cooking time depends on the specific recipe.
It is recommended to boil wild mushrooms (mushrooms collected on your own, not purchased from the supermarket) before cooking to minimize the influence of environmental factors. In such cases, the mushrooms are boiled in plenty of water.
Question: How much forest mushrooms should be cooked?
Answer: Two to three minutes after fully boiling. Drain the broth, rinse the mushrooms and you can start cooking.
It should be understood that not every influence of harmful environmental factors can be removed by boiling. And here it doesn't matter at all whether we cook mushrooms for three minutes or three hours. So, for example, heavy metals are not digested, are not removed by boiling. And poisoning with heavy metals is one of the most severe types of poisoning, difficult to diagnose and poorly cured at the current level of development of medicine. If the area seems ecologically unfavorable to you, refrain from picking mushrooms.The "environmentally unfriendly" unambiguously include roadsides, where the soil has been soaked for decades with tetraethyl lead - Pb (CH3CH2) 4 - and agricultural fields, where nitrates, pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals are scattered in abundance. Former landfills, parking lots, abandoned industrial facilities, burial sites are also considered to be places of increased danger.
Sometimes edible mushrooms are boiled before cooking in order to shorten the cooking time or to allow the mushrooms to shrink in advance if the harvested crop does not fit in the pan.
In such cases, the mushrooms are boiled in a little water to minimize flavor loss, and the broth can be used to make mushroom soups.
As a pretreatment, it is recommended to cook mushrooms no more than:
- Porcini mushrooms - 3 minutes
- Boletus and aspen mushrooms - 4-5 min
- Flywheels - 5 min
- Russula - 5-6 min
- Butter - 5-6 minutes
- Honey mushrooms - 6-8 minutes
- Chanterelles - 7-10 minutes
- Morels - 10 min
- Champignons - 15 min
To quickly reduce the volume of mushrooms, experienced chefs recommend using scalding rather than boiling : chopped mushrooms are placed in a colander and spilled with boiling water.
Any water pretreatment, be it boiling or scalding, will reduce the flavor and taste of the mushrooms.Sometimes it becomes necessary to boil the harvested mushrooms in order to increase their shelf life. It is not recommended to store raw, freshly picked mushrooms for more than a day, even in the refrigerator. But if such mushrooms are processed (peeled, washed and boiled), they can be stored for weeks.
In this case, the mushrooms should be boiled, as they say, "until cooked". Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for at least 20 minutes.
Question: How to check mushrooms for readiness?
Answer : Remove the pan from heat and wait half a minute - a minute. If the mushrooms are ready, they will begin to sink to the bottom of the pot .
For more guaranteed storage during cooking, you can add a little salt: 1 teaspoon (no "slide") for 1 liter of water.
Next, you need to let the mushrooms cool. Put the cooled mushrooms into jars, fill them with broth, close them with ordinary lids and put them in the refrigerator on the "cold shelf". You can store mushrooms boiled in this way for 2-3 weeks. You can use them in the same way as fresh mushrooms: fry, stew, make soups and hodgepodge.
2. Conditionally edible mushrooms. Do I need to cook conditionally edible mushrooms? How many times to cook such mushrooms?
Conditional edible mushrooms are therefore called “conditionally edible”: they are edible only if certain conditions are met . In the description of such species it is usually written like this: "The mushroom is edible after preliminary boiling." The time of such boiling is usually also indicated in the description of the mushroom. The broth is always drained , it cannot be used for preparing the first courses.
When boiling conditionally edible mushrooms, you can adhere to one simple rule: for the first time we bring the mushrooms to a boil, boil for 2-3 minutes, drain the broth immediately, wash the mushrooms two or three times, then set to boil in clean water. And this will be considered the first boil.
For conditionally edible mushrooms, it is extremely important to strictly follow the recommendations. So, for example, if it is recommended to first soak the Valui with periodic water changes, and then boil it, then this is exactly what should be done, and not vice versa.
Those conditionally edible mushrooms that can be fried, stewed, added to soups - that is, those mushrooms that do not go into pickling can be boiled and stored in the refrigerator, in jars, as described above, for edible mushrooms. So, for example, Sulfur-yellow Tinder and Scaly Tinder are perfectly stored in the refrigerator, waiting for the turn to go to the pan.3. Inedible, slightly poisonous and poisonous mushrooms. Do I need to cook poisonous mushrooms? Can boiling neutralize the poison in mushrooms?
Popular practice knows many types of poisonous mushrooms that can be cooked and eaten without visible harm to health. But think about it: is it really necessary to take risks?
The position of the VikiMush team in this matter is completely unambiguous: We categorically do not recommend experimenting with poisonous mushrooms!There are poisons that are not destroyed by anything: neither boiling, nor freezing, and they kill quickly enough (Pale toadstool). There are poisons that accumulate in the body for a long time, sometimes for years, before taking effect (the pig is thin) and also do not break down when boiled. Take care of yourself, there are so many good, edible mushrooms in the world!