If a year is high for mushrooms, then the hostess not only salts and marinates the mushrooms, but also dries. Moreover, dry mushrooms retain their useful and nutritional qualities for several years. The main thing is that the mushrooms are well dried, and the rules of their storage are observed.
Most often dried spongy mushrooms. These include white, boletus, boletus, orange-cap boletus ...
Although aspen mushrooms belong to the second category, they are in dried form no worse than the famous boletus (white). Is it only during the drying they darken. But this does not affect their taste.
Preparation of aspen mushrooms for drying
Only strong aspen birds, which have been collected recently, are suitable for drying. Worms, shriveled, damaged by forest dwellers mushrooms for drying are not suitable.
Also overgrown mushrooms do not dry. After all, any fungi, like a sponge, absorb both outside and out of the soil both beneficial and harmful substances.
And if the mushrooms for a different type of blanks can and should be soaked in water for some time, then the mushrooms can not be washed for drying for the simple reason that they are very saturated with water and then they cannot be dried.
Therefore, aspen birds clean the needles, grass, moss stuck to them with a slightly damp or even dry cloth. Bottom of the legs, where the earth is cut.
How to dry aspen mushrooms in the sun
Many mushroom pickers begin drying aspen mushrooms most often in the sun. Especially if the collection of mushrooms is delayed for several days. And, as you know, mushrooms need to start drying as soon as possible after they have been picked.
First, the mushrooms are sorted by size.
Small aspen mushrooms can be dried completely.
In large aspen mushrooms, the cap is separated from the stem, leaving a small stump. Large caps cut into several pieces. The legs, if they are dried in the sun, can be left whole or cut lengthwise into two parts.
For drying in the sun using different stands of wood or metal. Dry the mushrooms by putting them on the ramrod so that they do not touch each other.
Whole mushrooms can be strung on a fishing line, a thick durable thread, which is pulled in a place where a lot of sun gets and where there is good air circulation. Mushrooms necessarily cover with gauze from flies and dust.
Since drying mushrooms in the sun is a long process (after all, mushrooms are removed at night), then as soon as possible, the aspen mushrooms are dried in a stove, oven, or dryer.
How to dry boletus in the oven
To dry in the oven, aspen mushrooms need to be cut, as whole mushrooms will dry for a very long time.
Most often they are cut in the form of mushroom noodles. That is, cut the leg and cut it along slices or across - in circles. A hat with a small hemp from the leg is cut along thin slices. Mushrooms, crushed in this way, dry much faster. The baking sheet is covered with parchment and spread on it slices of aspen mushrooms so that they lie freely and do not touch each other.
The baking tray is placed in an oven heated to 50-55 °. The oven door is kept ajar, as the mushrooms first emit a liquid that must evaporate somewhere.
When the slices of mushrooms decrease in size and become slightly thinned, the temperature is increased to 65-70 ° and the mushrooms are dried further.
The baking sheet must be periodically removed, ventilated mushrooms and put back in the oven.
When slices stop emit moisture when pressed, the temperature is lowered again, and the mushrooms are brought to the desired condition. If some of the mushrooms are ready, they are removed from the pan and left to cool on the table.
Dry mushrooms should not exhale when you press them with your fingers, bend a little, but not crumble into dust.
How to dry aspen mushrooms in dryers
It is best to dry the aspen mushrooms in an electric dryer designed for drying mushrooms, berries, and vegetables.
Mushrooms for this type of drying also need to be cut into thin plates, which greatly accelerates the process. Slices are laid out on drip trays and dried at about 60 ° C. Moreover, mushrooms on 2-3 pallets will dry much faster than the same slices laid on a greater number of pallets.
For drying in conventional dryers, chopped aspen mushrooms are placed on metal sieves one above the other. But you need to periodically change the location of the screens, since at the top of the mushrooms dry much faster. Generally, drying mushrooms is a very scrupulous process and does not like haste. After all, at high temperatures, the mushrooms can simply burn. But the low temperature - below 50 ° - can not dry the mushrooms, but spoil them, as they can rot.
Mushroom powder from dry aspen mushrooms
Mushroom powder can be prepared from dried aspen mushrooms. To do this, the aspen mushrooms are broken into pieces, and then crushed in a coffee grinder.
Since the mushroom powder from the aspen mushrooms is dark, it is usually refined by adding to it the powder from ceps in the ratio of 9: 1, 8: 2, or at its discretion.
How to keep dry aspen mushrooms
Dry aspen mushrooms are stored in fabric bags in a dry room with good ventilation. If there are not many mushrooms, they can be strung on a string and hung near the stove or radiator, covering them with gauze from dust.
Mushroom powder stored in glass jars with a screw cap.
With proper storage conditions, dry aspen birds can be stored for several years.
