Food preparation is an important section of culinary processing, which allows you to get a tasty and healthy dish at the exit. Often we do not know how to properly prepare the products, and we make mistakes. This affects the quality, taste and preservation of nutrients. Today we will talk about how to clean mushrooms. At first glance, the question is trifling. In fact, it contains a lot of nuances.
Affordable luxury
These snow-white mushrooms are on sale today all year round. You can just buy them at the store, you don’t have to walk around the fields and look for mushroom places. Champignons contain a huge amount of vitamins and minerals, amino acids, high-grade protein. This product is popular among vegetarians and raw foodists. Due to the low calorie content, mushrooms are used by losing weight people.
And not everyone knows how to clean mushrooms properly. Moreover, most housewives will not immediately answer whether this procedure is needed. Let's look at what the professionals in their field, the culinary technologists, say about this.
Choose the right one
This also applies to the case when you yourself harvested in the forest, as well as trips to the store. Good mushrooms should be tight and light. The hat should be white or milky, without spots, rot and mold. Accordingly, the smell should be light.
Slightly dried specimens with brownish spots can also be used. If you know how to clean the mushrooms for frying, then carefully remove any darkening with a knife. During the heat treatment, all these flaws will disappear, and you will get a very tasty dish. Yes, the taste and smell will not be so bright, but you need to be a gourmet in order to track the difference in shades of taste.
There is another point here. Any mushrooms are suitable for frying, even if they are not of the first freshness. We do not consider the case of rotting; dried mushrooms are a variant of the norm. But for salads, pizza, they should be not only tasty, but also beautiful. Therefore, in this case, you need to choose only snow-white mushrooms.
Do not eat specimens affected by mold. And do not reassure yourself that you washed them well and fried. Mold spores can survive under any conditions. If the fruit bodies have soft, slippery places, then they also have a place in the bin.
Cleaning Features
The very first mistake is that, by analogy with other mushrooms, champignons are immersed in water. This works great for loaves and other dense mushrooms. But tender champignon is extremely dislike water. It is quickly absorbed by it, it becomes watery and tasteless. Dishes lose their taste and aroma. Negligent sellers take advantage of this, folding before changing mushrooms in the water. Of course, they will look fresher, and the weight will become more.
So, talking about how to clean mushrooms, you need to give the first advice to the hostesses. Try to do it without water. Only after the procedure is completed can the fruit bodies be rinsed slightly.
Direct to heat treatment
This is the second mistake that must also be avoided. Mistresses in practice are faced with the fact that well-soaked and peeled mushrooms become tasteless. And they decide that this procedure is superfluous. It is not for nothing that today we raised the question of how to clean mushrooms properly. It is necessary to do this, but following the rules.
First of all, you need to sort out the mushrooms. Separately fold small, snow-white. Large mushrooms with brown skin will go separately. And in the third pile, remove specimens with severe contamination in the sand.
To each his own
With small fungi there will be no problems. It is enough to brush away the dirt with a damp cloth and slightly cut the leg. Now rinse it under running water and place it so that excess moisture immediately drains. To do this, you can use a colander, paper or rag towel.
How to clean fresh champignons, if they have already reached large sizes? Often in this case, on the leg we can observe part of the mycelium with sand and twigs. This part must be cut with a knife. On the fruiting bodies themselves, there may be damage, pollution, twigs. All this must also be carefully removed, cut off, and then rinsed under running water. As you can see, nothing complicated.
Upper skin
Young and fresh mushrooms have a thin and delicate skin that is easy to rinse with water. Do I need to take it off? No, without it, mushrooms lose their aroma and nutrients. You need to remove it only from stale specimens that have been lying on the counter in the store for a long time. In this case, the skin is removed from the cap, and the skirt is removed from the leg. How to clean fresh mushrooms for frying? There is nothing complicated here. Just remove visible dirt and rinse under water. You can start frying. Do not forget to add butter, onions and sour cream.
If the mushrooms have already spent some time on the counter and are pretty dry, then you need to remove the upper skin. This is done very easily. You just need to pry it with the tip of the knife and remove it from the bottom up. If the product is not very fresh, then removing the peel will be easy.
As for raised hats with skirts, many chefs cut them off. But they do not constitute any danger. Lying mushrooms at home just need to peel and trim the leg.
Fresh mushrooms
If champignon has just been picked, it is a gourmet product. You can even eat them raw. Then again the question arises, how to clean mushrooms champignons, if you do not expect heat treatment? Nothing changes in this case. It is necessary to remove the existing dirt with a sponge or knife, cut the leg and rinse with water. Now you can chop the mushroom and add it to the salad or cook any cold appetizer based on it.
Do you always need to clean them?
The process of processing mushrooms also depends on what you plan to do next.
- Before drying, it is best to clean the fruit with a damp cloth or brush. Do not wash under any circumstances. It is important to update all slices and remove imperfections on the body of the fungus. Do not wash before drying, otherwise the mushrooms will darken. In addition, the drying process will be significantly slowed down.
- Before frying. The preparation of mushrooms in this case also comes down to cleaning with a brush and a damp cloth. Wash mushrooms before frying is not worth it. Or rinse them under the tap and lay them on a towel so that all excess moisture is absorbed. Only in this case, a beautiful crust forms on them, and the mushrooms turn out to be tasty and fragrant.
- Before cooking. But here the rules are not so strict. You can rinse fruit bodies well so that sand and debris do not get into the broth.
- Before baking. Here, excess fluid is also not needed, so only a short-term water procedure for fungi is allowed. To do this, prepare a solution of 2 tablespoons of flour. It acts as a kind of abrasive and allows you to clean the surface of contaminants.
- Before freezing. Only fresh specimens should be allowed to enter the freezer without flaws. Preparation involves brushing and removing dirt.
Instead of a conclusion
Today, we have examined in some detail how to clean mushrooms properly. Photos are attached. Follow the recommendations so that you always have tasty and healthy champignon dishes on the table. These mushrooms are universal. They can be put in soups, fried, salted or dried.