White fungus - king among mushrooms. He and impressively beautiful, and nutritious, comfortable and easy to cook. If some mushrooms require pre-soaking or boiling, then after cleaning, you can immediately spread the white fungus on a hot frying pan and fry.
And here at mushroom pickers, especially beginners, the question arises: how to clean porcini mushrooms?
Preparatory stage - campaign for porcini mushrooms
If you have the good fortune to live in those places where white mushrooms grow, and you decide to prepare them for future use, well, or at least cook a mushroom soup, then you should take care of cleaning the mushrooms in advance.
After all, everyone knows how much time and nerves are taken away cleaning and washing mushrooms. Still, with enviable persistence, the mushroom pickers, without thinking about the consequences, hitting the forest, tend to quickly fill the basket with mushrooms. They enter into such excitement that they forget about everything in the world! Even the fact that after such a promenade they will have to sit for a long time over a mountain of mushrooms and sort, clean, wash ...
But you can ease the task and start processing (cleaning) mushrooms directly in the forest.
To do this, going for mushrooms, you need to take with you a brush and also paper towels, as well as paper towels. Such a soft and small brush can be bought at any hardware store. Or purchase a soft-bristled toothbrush specifically for “quiet hunting”. The brush is useful for superficial cleaning of mushrooms, and towels - to wipe these mushrooms from dust and dirt. And of course, the basket must be clean - without garbage and last year's foliage.
Stage Two - Cleaning White Mushrooms ... In the Forest
Having found a mushroom, do not rush, tearing it off, throw it into the basket and run after the next one. Carefully cut the mushroom and inspect it from all sides. If there are no visible damages in the form of a rotted barrel or a hat bit by local inhabitants, proceed with cleaning it. First, cut the lower part of the leg, where the main dirt accumulates. But at the same time, check whether omnipresent worms have not made any moves in the leg. If there is one “tunnel”, then do not worry! Cut it with a knife. After all, if you leave the mushroom as it is, the worm will not only continue its work in this mushroom, but also crawl to the next one. But if there are several holes in the mushroom, then throw it mercilessly!
Then look under the cap. Insects and other small animals very often live there.
After that, brush off sticks of grass, needles and other forest garbage from the hat. Also clean and leg of the fungus. The leg is quite amenable to such manipulation, since it is dense, fleshy and elastic.
If you pick mushrooms for heat treatment (frying, boiling) or for pickling and salting, then this cleaning step can be considered complete.
If you are collecting mushrooms for drying, then, armed with a damp towel, carefully wipe the mushroom cap and leg. After all, mushrooms that are intended for drying cannot be washed! Because white mushrooms, like a sponge, instantly absorb water, but give it back for a very long time. If you try to dry the washed mushrooms, then most likely you will suffer a failure in the form of spoiled and moldy slices.
Now clean and pre-treated mushroom can be sent to the basket and keep to the next. Or pick a few mushrooms, spread them out on the grass, peel them, put them in a basket and go to the next mushroom family.
Of course, such a collection of mushrooms is stretched at times. But in this way you will avoid the tedious cleaning of mushrooms at home, all the garbage and mushroom waste will remain in the forest, and you will not have to deal with kitchen washing after the processing of mushrooms.
The next stage is washing the white mushrooms
When you come home, immediately wash the white mushrooms. These are the ones you collected for cooking.
It is not necessary to soak porcini mushrooms, since their quality deteriorates from this, and many useful substances are washed out of them. Therefore, rinse them under running water by gently brushing particularly contaminated areas with a brush. The exception is mushrooms collected immediately after the rain and very dirty.
Put these mushrooms in a bowl and soak for fifteen minutes in cold water with salt. Firstly, all the garbage will remain on the bottom or rise to the surface, and, secondly, the insects that climbed under the cap will leave their shelter. Take out each mushroom from the basin and rinse under running water.
White mushroom is quite large - up to twenty centimeters in diameter, so it must be cut. Mushroom cut lengthwise into two halves and just in case again look at the presence of wormholes.
Then separate the hat with a knife and if it is large, cut it into several pieces. If the leg is large, cut it. Now the mushrooms are ready for heat treatment.
Mushrooms for drying, not mine, cut into thin slices and act as required by further instructions.
