Unlike some other tasty edible mushrooms such as button mushrooms or oyster mushrooms, porcini mushrooms cannot be grown in the home garden. Instead, the porcini mushroom lover has to rely on finding the tasty fruiting bodies themselves in the forest. With a bit of luck - and when the weather is right for mushrooms - you can make quite a lot of prey. But what to do with so many fresh porcini mushrooms?
How to preserve porcini mushrooms?
Porcini mushrooms can be preserved by drying or freezing. To dry, cut the mushrooms into slices and dry them in the oven or in a dehydrator at a maximum of 70°C. To freeze, freeze cut pieces raw and store at -18°C.
The best methods for preserving
Due to their high water and protein content, fresh mushrooms only last for a very short time: the mushroom protein decomposes quickly, with the result that the meal becomes inedible. Once cleaned and freed from maggots or other unsightly spots, porcini mushrooms can last for two to three days in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator. You should not store the mushrooms outside of this. If the collected goods are to be preserved for a longer period of time, porcini mushrooms can be easily frozen or dried.
Drying porcini mushrooms
Even if you often read these instructions in magazines or online forums, please do not follow them: sliced mushrooms that are left to air dry quickly mold, which in turn can lead to nasty food poisoning. It is better to dry the cleaned and sliced mushrooms either in a dehydrator or in the oven at a maximum of 70 °C. The oven method requires you to leave the oven door ajar (for example, by jamming a wooden spoon into it). If the slices can be broken easily (and no longer bent), they are dry enough.
Freezing porcini mushrooms
It is even better to clean fresh porcini mushrooms and cut them into bite-sized pieces and then freeze them raw. They can last up to a year this way, provided they have been frozen in a freezer at around minus 18°C. The freezer compartment of the refrigerator is not cold enough for this purpose; the mushrooms only last a few days to weeks here.
Enjoy with caution: preserving porcini mushrooms
Perhaps you know this process from your grandmother, who - like many others of her generation - simply boiled or cooked mushrooms.woken up. Even today, this method is being used more and more again, which is due to the ongoing trend towards making things yourself. However, it is important to be particularly careful here: if the jar does not close properly, toxic toxins can form during storage. The mushrooms are then spoiled and may no longer be eaten! So always make sure (even when opening mushrooms that have already been preserved!) that the lid is sealed airtight.
Tip
Porcini mushrooms taste best fresh from the forest: fry the cleaned and sliced mushrooms together with small diced onions in butter and add a mixture of crème fraîche and sweet cream. The whole thing is only seasoned with s alt, pepper and fresh parsley.
