How to Dry Mushrooms: 8 Ways

Mushrooms are a traditional product of national cuisine in different countries. According to their nutritional properties, they are a worthy alternative to meat. Freshly, they are a seasonal product, but correctly dried mushrooms can be stored for a long time.

The advantage of this method of preparation is the neutrality of the product compared to salted or pickled mushrooms. No special ingredients or other products are required for drying. Stocking for the winter in this way can be made in a city apartment or a country house with a minimum set of equipment.

In the dry form of mushrooms have a small mass, relatively compact in storage. From a small weight and volume portion of dried forest products can be cooked a complete meal for the whole family. It is convenient to use them for cooking almost any type of dishes.

Which mushrooms are suitable for drying?

1. The best mushrooms for drying are tubular mushrooms. Their distinctive feature is the spongy surface texture on the underside of the cap. This group includes boletus (ceps), aspen and boletus mushrooms, mokhoviks, oak mushrooms and other varieties of edible tubular mushrooms.
2. Among the laminae, chanterelles are dried, but they can have a bitter taste. Therefore, for this forest delicacy, if possible, it is better to choose a different way of preparation.
3. You can also dry morels - marsupials. Precious truffles belong to this group as well. Mushrooms of this group are conditionally edible, since they contain toxins. They look as if turned inside out - their spores are on the upper side of the cap in special cavities. Such mushrooms appear shapeless and are rarely of interest as a food product. They can be dried, but with a special technology that makes it safe to eat them. Unlike other mushrooms, the drying process is very long and takes 2-3 months. This is how long it takes for the complete decomposition of dangerous toxins.
4. Among the lamellate mushrooms (under the cap you can see the ribbed surface of thin membranes), you can try to dry mushrooms, red mushrooms, deer mushrooms and umbrella mushrooms.

From the harvest for drying it is better to select strong young mushrooms of spongy species. Start processing the raw material as soon as possible after returning from the forest. Therefore, another criterion for suitable mushrooms for drying - they must be freshly picked.

Preference should be given to specimens of medium size. For giants and little ones, there are more successful uses.

Ideal for drying mushrooms collected in dry, clean forests in clear, warm weather. Then they do not have to be washed, and the finished product will be of high quality.

Which mushrooms should not be dried?

Almost all plate mushrooms are not suitable for drying. These are dewdrops, volnushki, milk mushrooms, and bitter mushrooms - they are fragile and easily crumbled. Even if you manage not to damage them during drying, the dish made of them will be bitter. The reason for this is the milky juice contained in the body of lamellar mushrooms. During the drying process, it gives the raw material a bitterness that is unnoticeable with other methods of processing.

In addition to the type to which the mushroom belongs, attention should also be paid to the quality of the raw material. Old, slug-damaged, wormy and rotten mushrooms are not suitable for drying.

You should not use this method to harvest forest products if they have been harvested in rainy weather. Mushrooms that have absorbed large amounts of moisture can turn black during the drying process. Therefore, it is better to process the entire harvest from wetlands in a different way.

Very large specimens are also unsuitable for drying because they either contain too much moisture or have a fibrous structure. In either case, the result of harvesting will not be happy. Such specimens should be used for canning and frying.

Very small mushrooms are also poor candidates for drying. They will lose their volume during processing and are likely to turn into dust during storage.

If the basket contains a mushroom whose name you can not identify exactly, it is better not to dry it. Even better - do not eat it in any form. This can be dangerous.

How to prepare mushrooms for drying

On the quality of preparation depends the taste of the obtained preparations. Therefore, this stage should be given enough time and select for drying only the best specimens.

It is important to pay attention to the following points:

1. Before drying, the entire crop should be carefully sorted and put aside mushrooms suitable for this type of processing. It is required to sort them by type (spongy separately from lamellar), choose the strongest, driest, without damage.
2. It is best if the selected specimens are clean. Washed mushrooms in the drying process lose some of the flavor and can begin to deteriorate (moldy, wormy). Therefore, it is desirable to avoid wet processing of raw materials.
3. Fragments of soil, needles and other dry impurities should be cleaned off each mushroom by hand with a knife and a slightly damp cloth. The fungus, if preserved, should be completely cut off. Decayed, wormy, very wet, old raw material should not try to use partially by removing the spoiled part or drying with a towel.
4. Many kinds of mushrooms turn black from contact with metal. Therefore, for their processing, it is better to choose a ceramic or plastic knife, tools made of bone and horn are suitable.
5. The caps of spongy mushrooms are better to separate from the legs. These parts have a different structure and texture, so for drying them must be prepared in different ways.
6. The caps are better dried whole or cut into halves or quarters. The slices can be sliced lengthwise into bars or crosswise into circles. The thickness of slices of any shape should be about 5 mm.
7. Plate mushrooms are advised to leave whole. When sorting them before drying, they need to be transferred very carefully, so as not to damage the fragile caps.

You must be prepared for the fact that less than half of the 10 kg of harvest will be suitable for drying, which in the dried state is about 1 kg. Of this amount, about a third may be unsuitable for food if the technology is not harvested.

How to dry mushrooms at home

There are many methods for drying mushrooms. It is traditionally believed that the more natural the conditions for harvesting, the better the product. Therefore, to be able to enjoy mushroom soup with the flavor of forest products in winter, you must have patience in the summer and fall, in the mushroom season.

Fast drying methods are suitable for cases where you have to choose between the fact that the mushrooms will go bad and you will just have to throw them away, or an emergency preservation.

In the sun

This is the most natural way to preserve mushrooms. It allows you to preserve the inimitable flavor and save the maximum nutrients contained in the gifts of the forest. The prepared material is spread out in a single layer on a paper that absorbs moisture. The night mushrooms carried into a warm room.

It takes 1-2 sunny days to be fully ready, depending on the type of mushrooms and the quality of slicing. Thin slices will dry quickly, but they can turn to dust in storage. This method works well for sponge mushrooms.

Plate mushrooms and chanterelles dry slowly in the sun, and the resulting preparation is somewhat rubbery in texture when eaten this way. This is due to the fact that the mushrooms are first slightly sun-dried and then begin to dry out.

This method of preparation does not require any additional costs, but makes the whole process dependent on weather conditions.

On a string

Another method proven over the years is drying on a thread. In terms of preserving the qualities and flavor, it is just as good as harvesting supplies under the influence of sunlight. And in terms of content, this option is very simple. Using a thick needle, slices of mushrooms are strung on a thick thread. A kind of beads are obtained, which are stretched in a sunny place and covered with gauze to protect from dust and insects. During bad weather and at night the beads are taken inside.

If the weather was unlucky, and the house is warm, the mushrooms dry perfectly on a string and in a heated room. It is important to make sure there are no pungent smells in the room where the drying is done. Mushrooms easily absorb extraneous odors. It is also necessary to consider the fact that in a warm but humid room the preparation will spoil.

Mushrooms dried on a string are easy to store. In this way you can prepare any kind of forest products. Depending on the species of mushrooms and the size of slices, they can be dried on a thread in 2-7 days.

This method is good for country houses, but again, the result depends on weather conditions and temperature conditions at home.

In the oven

In the oven of an electric stove, prepared mushrooms can be dried on a rack covered with parchment, at a temperature of 40-50 degrees. The process takes several hours and requires constant monitoring. You should periodically stir the mushrooms or simply move the rack, changing the position of slices in relation to the heating element.

If the mushrooms are wilted, but have begun to strongly curl without drying, you should increase the temperature to 70-75 degrees and finish the process with the open door of the oven. The exact cooking time depends on the raw material and on the characteristics of the oven.

If mushrooms are dried with a gas stove, first you need to heat the oven well at maximum heat, then turn off the fire and put in it sliced mushrooms, laid out on a tray lined with parchment or baking paper. After the oven has cooled completely, assess the condition of the raw material. If it is still elastic, it is required to finish the process at minimum heat.

There is another option of using a gas oven as a dryer. It is heated up to 65-70 degrees and put inside two trays with mushrooms: one up and one down. Leave the door open for free circulation of air. Every 45-60 minutes change the top and bottom batches until the product is fully cooked.

Well dried in the oven mushrooms should not be brittle. If the piece can be easily crushed into a fine crumb with your fingers, it means that too high a temperature was used during drying.

In an electric dryer

A very high-quality product is obtained in an electric dryer. This unit is specially designed for this method of preparation. Good models of dryers are necessarily equipped with a fan. This provides air circulation, so that all slices are dried evenly, they do not need to be stirred in the process of drying.

The disadvantage of this cooking method is that the compact dryers process a relatively small amount of raw materials in one cycle, and large units are very cumbersome. In addition, they can not be used in conditions where there is no electricity.

But otherwise, this is a very good way to get dried mushrooms, in flavor and quality not inferior to harvested in natural conditions.

In the microwave oven

To dry mushrooms in the microwave, they have to be cut into smaller pieces than for other methods. Flavor will be better preserved if the prepared raw material is left to dry in the sun for 1-2 hours.

The principle of drying in the microwave is to evaporate all the moisture from the mushrooms. Therefore, the process is carried out in several stages until the desired effect is achieved.

The exact sequence of steps depends on the microwave model, but the general logic is as follows:

1. Mushrooms, sliced, neatly laid out on a flat-shaped microwave dish, so that the slices do not touch each other.
2. Cook the dish at 200 W power for 20 minutes.
3. Drain the liquid, which has evaporated.
4. Repeat all manipulation until mushrooms are dry.

As it dries, you can not add a new portion of the product. In fact, this method is a shock dehydration - the rapid removal of moisture from the tissues.

The method is quite fast, but is suitable only for processing small amounts of raw materials, because it requires uninterrupted control throughout the process.

In an aerogrill

As in other methods that involve the use of household electrical appliances, the details of drying mushrooms in an aerogrill depend on the brand and model of the device.

Prepared mushrooms are distributed in a single layer on a grid and set the mode "drying". To exactly dry the mushrooms, but not baked, the lid of the air grill is left ajar to allow the moisture to evaporate freely.

The process takes place at a temperature of 95-100 degrees and takes depending on the quality of raw materials from 1 to 4 hours. During drying, check the degree of readiness. It may be that the raw material dried unevenly. Fully cooked slices remove, on the vacated space to add fresh pieces undesirable.

With this method of preparation mushrooms are cut into larger slices - up to 1 cm thick. You can also try drying slightly damp or washed raw material. Drying very small mushrooms is also possible. In this case, they are laid out not on a grid, but in a mesh tray.

In the Russian oven

For modern man, the Russian oven is probably the most exotic device for drying mushrooms. In the old days it was the only alternative to the natural way of making under the sunlight or in the hayloft on strings.

The oven is cleaned of ash and embers, the inner surface is thoroughly cleaned. The wood is put in, birch logs are especially good: they burn quickly and give a strong heat. When the coals begin to go out, use the poker to distribute them from the center to the edges, freeing the middle.

Mushrooms are spread on a tray or a grid in slices or stacked entirely on the cap, stem up. The drying process takes place on hot bricks in the center of the oven. To maintain the temperature around 70-75 degrees, the damper is periodically opened so that the mushrooms are dried, not fried or burned.

If you do not have at hand neither a tray, nor a grid or aluminum sheet, the mushrooms inside the oven can be placed by stringing them on small sprigs. Culinary skewers will also work. Such improvised skewers are placed in a tent and left to dry in the depths of the oven.

The physical processing of mushrooms in the Russian oven resembles drying in the oven. But the peculiarities of ancient construction and the effect of heat from the burning logs give the finished product special, incomparable flavor.

During the drying of mushrooms Russian oven can not be left unattended, the process requires constant monitoring. This is important for both product quality and fire safety.

In the bathhouse

If we talk about rustic life, the bathhouse is also a suitable room for drying mushrooms. Threaded slices are hung in the anteroom, covered with a thin cloth or gauze and left for 7-10 days.

In the process, make sure that a gap appears between the slices of mushrooms as they dry. Shift the slices tightly to each other only after they all dry well.

Drying in a bath is more convenient than in the house, because in this room it is easier to avoid the extraneous odors that can absorb mushrooms.

How to tell if the mushrooms are dried

To enjoy the flavor and aroma of dried mushroom dishes, it's important to stop the cooking process in time. Too long processing leads to the loss of their main qualities, acquiring bitterness, unpleasant color and other properties, due to which it will be impossible to eat such a product.

With any method of drying, the process is constantly monitored. Since mushrooms are heterogeneous in texture, some pieces will dry faster, others slower. Therefore, during the drying of mushrooms, they are constantly taken over. Slices ready for storage are put away in a dry, clean dish or cloth bag. New slices are not added to the empty space.

The readiness of dried mushrooms can be determined by three signs: it is hard, but elastic; it bends, but does not crumble or break; no moisture is released when pressed firmly.

Fragility occurs for two reasons: it is the result of an unsuccessful attempt to dry a lamellar mushroom or too high temperature was used for drying.

Can you dry wormy mushrooms

Wormy mushrooms are not suitable for drying, even if only part of their bodies is infested. The living inhabitants of the gifts of the forest are the larvae of various insects. On the affected area one can see only organisms that have already developed to this level, but in the body of the mushroom may be a lot of eggs, the larvae from which have not yet emerged.

During drying, especially if it takes place naturally at relatively gentle temperatures and for a long time, these unpleasant creatures in the mushrooms will dry out along with them. It can happen that they do not die, but develop during the process of harvesting mushrooms. Then the harvested raw material will be spoiled - there will be tenants in it.

Larvae easily move from infected slices to whole slices and can spoil a lot of good raw material.

To eat mushrooms with such an additional garnish as dried insect eggs is hardly a pleasant prospect. Therefore, it is necessary not to be greedy, but to exclude wormy specimens from the number of those selected for drying.

Wormy mushrooms have characteristic features: On a slice of the stalks you can see black spots, and a longitudinal incision of any part of it reveals traces of larvae - a system of passages and corridors. Even if the dweller itself is not inside the mushroom, you should not dry it. And in general, it is better to refuse to eat such a risky product.

How to store dried mushrooms correctly

After drying, mushrooms must be cooled and only then packed and placed in storage. When harvested naturally (in the sun or on a string), the mushrooms are at ambient temperature by the time they have dried. All other drying options require additional time for the product to cool completely.

Storage conditions for dried mushrooms require maintaining a moisture-heat and light regime. The choice of storage location depends on the method of packaging.

In linen and paper containers

Dried mushrooms retain their properties very well in linen bags and paper bags. These are opaque materials that prevent the penetration of sunlight and artificial light. Textile packaging provides additional air circulation, so the mushrooms will not get moldy. Paper packaging also protects against the same disaster because of its hygroscopic properties.

Both the bag and the package must be securely closed so that no air can get inside, no insects can get in, and no dust can accumulate. If it is impossible to close the package tightly after opening, you should package the mushrooms in small portions, so each is enough for the preparation of a particular dish.

In vacuum bags and containers

Storing dried mushrooms in a vacuum environment is a good modern solution. This environment removes bacteria, the development of which can lead to rot and mold. To keep mushrooms in a bag or container with a vacuum valve, it is better to store them in a cool place, you can even in the refrigerator on the shelf farthest from the freezer.

In glass jars

Glass jars reliably protect preparations from absorption of moisture and odors, attacks by insects and other dangers that can spoil dried mushrooms. For all their merits, such a container lets the light in, which can lead to over-drying of mushrooms and their destruction.

Therefore, it is better to use a container of colored darkened glass, and if this is not available - store preserves in dark places where light does not penetrate. Jars are sterilized before packing, and tightly sealed after filling with dried mushrooms.

In any storage method it is recommended to eat all dried mushrooms for the current calendar year. And with the advent of a new season to proceed to the fresh preserves.

How useful are dried mushrooms

Dried mushrooms have the same useful properties as fresh ones. This product is low-calorie, but dishes made of them leave you with a long-lasting feeling of fullness and vitality. Nutritional quality protein mushrooms close to beef, this explains nourishment mushroom dishes.

1. Mushrooms are hypoallergenic. There are practically no contraindications for eating them. The exception is pancreatic diseases, in their presence, it is better to refuse from mushroom dishes.
2. It is scientifically proved that the gifts of the forest stimulate intellectual activity, can have an antidepressant effect if prepared in combination with garlic and red pepper.
3. Chanterelles purify the blood and liver from toxins, have a beneficial effect on human health.
4. In some parts of the world mushroom dishes are used in the treatment of cancer. The therapeutic benefits of these products can be questioned, but the ability to give strength and strengthen the overall condition of the person is beyond doubt.
5. Mushrooms contain a whole vitamin complex (A, B, D, E, PP) and a set of useful trace elements, as well as a cocktail of half a dozen essential amino acids. Dried mushrooms are a source of sulfur, phosphorus, manganese, copper and potassium. They stimulate the production of melanin and beta-glucan.
6. Consumption of dishes from mushrooms has a beneficial effect on the cardiovascular and nervous systems, contributes to the maintenance of beauty and youth, improves the condition of hair and nails, strengthens the musculoskeletal system and bones.
7. Regular inclusion of mushroom dishes in the diet helps to take cholesterol and sugar levels under control, to maintain good physical shape and not to gain excess weight, feeling full and energetic.

What can be cooked with dried mushrooms

Dried mushrooms are a universal preparation. It can be used to prepare anything: soups, a variety of second courses (pilaf, zrazy, stir-fry, soufflés, quiche), fillings for cakes and a variety of pastries. Mushroom sauces are a great addition to many dishes.

In many recipes mushrooms can be substituted for the meat component without losing nutritional value and taste. For dried fruits of the forest to become a worthy alternative to meat, they should be soaked in cool water for several hours. After that you can subject them to any heat treatment.

How to make mushroom powder

From dried mushrooms you can make a wonderful universal seasoning - mushroom powder. It is used in the preparation of soups, sauces, side dishes and second courses. Unlike mushroom slices, mushroom powder is easier for the body to digest.

It is believed that the most fragrant spice is obtained from boletus (ceps), but you can make it from other varieties of wood products. Good in the form of powder and chanterelles, and mayflies. As an experiment, you can create a mix of different mushrooms, especially since the recipe for this preparation is very simple.

Dry mushrooms are ground into flour until a homogeneous powder. This can be done with any available device: hand or electric grinder, immersion or stationary mixer. In the old days, dried mushrooms were ground in a mortar.

One should strive to get a light texture without rough inclusions, as homogeneous as possible. Ideally cooked mushroom powder to the touch should be similar to powdered sugar.

To flavor the seasoning and increase its shelf life, add salt at the rate of 1 weight fraction by 10 weight fractions of mushroom powder. If desired, you can supplement the bouquet with dried parsley, dill, celery root, various types of sweet and bitter pepper and caraway seeds.

Here opens up space for imagination. The salted mushroom powder can be divided into portions and played with additions, creating a spicy or spicy mix. One basic ingredient can easily be used to make different flavors for soups and main courses.

Mushroom powder is used both during cooking and when serving portions to the table. In omelets and fillings the seasoning is added during kneading and whipping. Salads are dressed with mushroom powder at the stage when salt is added.

Keep seasoning, observing the traditional rules: using a glass hermetic dishes, not left under direct sunlight, not allowing moisture and steam inside the package.

Like dried mushrooms, powdered mushrooms are consumed within one year. The forest gifts of the new crop are used to make fresh preparations.