Freezing honey agarics

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Harvesting mushrooms for the winter involves not only pickling, but also freezing. Freezing fresh honey mushrooms has many advantages. With this storage method, the collected fruit bodies do not lose their taste and useful properties even after a long stay at a temperature of -18 ° C.

Freezing honey agarics

Preparing mushrooms before freezing

Honey mushrooms are among the best types of mushrooms to store in the freezer. Their size is small and the flesh is firm. After defrosting, the consistency of the product will not change much. Store-bought mushrooms are frozen without the need for pre-processing. If mushrooms are harvested in the forest, some peculiarities of obtaining blanks are taken into account.

Having found the mycelium, they carefully clean the place of mycelium germination and cut off the fruit bodies with a clean sharp knife. After the cut fragrant mushrooms are in the hands of a person, they are cleaned of dirt and placed in a basket with the cap down.

Before harvesting, it is important:

1. Select small to medium sized fruiting bodies. Large mushrooms are rarely used: they are less susceptible to freezing.
2. Use only whole fruiting bodies. Rotten and damaged mushrooms are discarded.
3. Rinse the product under running water (optional).

There are several ways to freeze at home. Both raw mushrooms and pre-heat treated mushrooms are frozen.

When harvesting fresh mushrooms, a kind of fork arises: for sanitary purposes, it is advisable to rinse the mushrooms before freezing, for culinary purposes it is not. And this is because the fruit bodies, after washing under water, are saturated with moisture, and this negatively affects the characteristics of storing the product in the freezer.

Freezing raw product

You can freeze mushrooms raw. All you need to do is prepare a large cutting board and make room for it in the freezer.

Fruit bodies are evenly spread on the board in one layer. After they are raw, they are frozen. After 2-3 hours, when the mycelium hardens, it is transferred to a plastic bag for further storage. Advice. If you are afraid that the mushrooms laid out on the cutting board will freeze to it, cover it with plastic and then spread the mushrooms.

Freezing blanched mushrooms

It will be possible to freeze mushrooms not only fresh, but also treated with hot water.

For blanching, you need to prepare 2 pots, a colander, a slotted spoon and paper towels. Cold water is poured into one of the containers, and a saline solution (20 g of salt per 1 liter of water) is poured into the other.

Following actions:

1. Put the saucepan with the brine on the fire and bring to a boil.
2. Honey mushrooms are placed in boiling saline solution. They are boiled in it for no longer than 3 minutes.
3. Using a slotted spoon, the product is taken out of the brine, placed in cold water (shock treatment).
4. After the operation, the future harvesting for the winter is laid out in a colander, allowing the water to drain completely.
5. The mushrooms are dried on a paper towel, spread out in one layer.

To freeze honey mushrooms for the winter, the dried product is laid out in plastic bags or in special containers for storing food. To properly freeze honey mushrooms, you need to divide the blanched mushrooms into small pieces in order to use the created stocks if necessary.

Irina Selyutina (Biologist):

Experienced culinary experts are convinced that blanching honey agaric, like other mushrooms, can be done if you plan to use them for soups or mushroom caviar in the future. For other recipes, in their opinion, including for frying, it is better not to blanch the mushrooms - the shape of the mushrooms can be deformed.

Do not defrost one large portion several times. After the second defrosting, the fruit bodies will become soft, change shape and color.

Freezing boiled mushrooms

Can freeze boiled mushrooms

Some housewives prefer to boil mushrooms before placing them in the freezer. The cooking and freezing procedure has its own characteristics. Fruit bodies are washed and then thrown into cold water. Further actions with fresh mushrooms look like this:

1. A saucepan with mushrooms is put on fire.
2. Bring to a boil.
3. The water is drained. The mushrooms are poured into a colander.
4. New water is boiled, the product is again poured into hot water.

Mushrooms are boiled for 40-50 minutes. After cooking, the boiled mushrooms are placed in a colander so that the excess liquid is glass. Then they are laid on a paper towel. When the boiled mushrooms have cooled and dried, they are frozen.

Freezing braised mushrooms

It will also be possible to freeze mushrooms for the winter after a preliminary extinguishing procedure. After such processing, the product will not lose its taste and aroma. Cooking time for harvested fruit bodies during cooking, frying, etc. will decrease.

The extinguishing procedure is simple.

What to do with fresh mushrooms:

1. Honey mushrooms are placed in a clean hot frying pan (no fat is used).
2. The fruits are salted and covered with a lid.
3. The fruits are stewed in their own juice for 25-30 minutes.

After the mushrooms have cooled, they are carefully placed in plastic or glass containers for freezing. It will also be possible to freeze the harvested crop in the forest after preliminary stewing in the oven. The product is simmered on a baking sheet at a temperature of + 180 ° C for 20-25 minutes. The main thing is to prevent the complete evaporation of the juice. If necessary, add boiled water to the pan.

Freezing fried mushrooms

Freeze honey mushrooms at home will also work fried. It is important to rinse them properly and dry them on a paper towel before heat treatment. Fry over low heat with a little fat. It is better to use sunflower oil for these purposes.

Honey mushrooms are fried for no more than 20 minutes, stirring constantly. During the allotted time, the juice released from the fruit bodies must evaporate.

Irina Selyutina (Biologist):

Fried mushrooms, laid out in a freezing container, are poured with the fat in which they were fried, and only then the general freezing of this product takes place. Freezing mushrooms in this way, you need to use them within 3-4 months, because further storage will lead to their loss of taste. When defrosting, you need to be prepared for the fact that your workpiece will look like a homogeneous mass. By the way. The same applies to stewed and boiled honey mushrooms.

Only after that, the product is cooled to room temperature and sent to storage in the freezer.

Conclusion

Honey mushrooms do not lose their properties even after freezing. The collected product is frozen both raw and heat-treated. Honey mushrooms are easy to boil, fry or stew. Such stocks are stored in the freezer for up to 6 months. Raw - up to 1 year.