The mushroom is in first place among cultivated mushrooms in Germany. Around 64,000 tonnes are produced every year and end up mainly in canned goods, cream sauces and on pizza. However, if you want to collect meadow mushrooms yourself, you should be very familiar with the poisonous counterparts. At home, the mushrooms are then cleaned and processed further - like all mushrooms, mushrooms do not last long.
How do you clean meadow mushrooms correctly?
To clean meadow mushrooms, they should not be washed. Instead, cut off the stalk, remove any black or brown spots and rub the mushrooms thoroughly with a kitchen towel or mushroom brush. The peel should not be removed as there are many vitamins there.
Find meadow mushrooms and harvest them correctly
The meadow mushroom grows in meadows and lawns, especially after summer thunderstorms. However, it does not tolerate artificial fertilization, which is why you should try your luck especially in regions with “old-fashioned” or organic farming. However, there are dangers lurking when collecting: In addition to the meadow mushroom, there are other species that have pink and, when they get old, brown lamellae. The lower stem flesh of the poisonous carbolic mushroom turns chrome yellow when cut, and this mushroom also smells like carbolic, plaster or “hospital”. Particularly young, closed specimens of the meadow mushroom can be confused with white specimens of the deadly poisonous death cap mushroom. For this reason, you should always carefully twist mushrooms out of the ground and never cut off the stem - you can recognize the poisonous mushrooms by the thickened base of the stem.
How to clean the meadow mushroom
When you get home with the spoils, you should clean them straight away. In contrast to some forest mushrooms, meadow mushrooms should not be washed because they absorb a lot of water very quickly and then become tasteless. Instead, it's best to proceed as follows:
- Gather a small paring knife, cutting board and kitchen towels.
- First cut the stem from the mushrooms.
- Then cut away any black or brown spots.
- Mushrooms don't need to be skinned - there are lots of vitamins under the shell.
- Now take a kitchen towel and rub each mushroom thoroughly individually.
- Instead of the kitchen towel, you can also use a mushroom brush.
You can then process the mushrooms as desired.
Processing meadow mushrooms
It's best to prepare the mushrooms fresh right away, because if you store them raw in the refrigerator, they'll only last a few days if you're lucky. The mushrooms can also be sliced and frozen, then you can use them like fresh mushrooms at a later date. Mushrooms can also be preserved by drying them, pickling them or even boiling them.
Tip
The cultivated mushrooms available in the supermarket belong to a separate species, the two-spored Egerling (also called Champignon de Paris). It can be grown in the cellar on inoculated substrate balls, which you can purchase as ready-made crops.
