Drying is one of the ways to preserve the most delicious of the gifts of the forest for a long time, to delight yourself and loved ones with aromatic dishes at any time of the year. But it is not enough to be able to dry mushrooms, they must also be properly prepared for use as an independent or constituent ingredient of a recipe.
Basic rules of preparation
Thanks to the drying method, the mushrooms remain available all year round. They are suitable for preparing any dish: soup, main courses, sauces.
You can pamper yourself and loved ones if you follow some rules for preparing the product for further heat treatment as an independent ingredient.
The first thing to do is to soak the dry product in water. The soaking time differs for everyone: someone says that one hour is enough, some advise to lower the mushrooms in the liquid in the evening, and in the morning to start preparing the dish, but basically agree that a couple of hours before direct cooking will be enough …
There is no consensus regarding the temperature regime of the liquid in which mushrooms should be soaked: cold or warm. The only rule is that in no case should boiling water be used for this purpose.
When dried, the mushrooms greatly decrease in size, so it must be borne in mind that when soaked, they will increase again. This is necessary when preparing other ingredients for the future dish, as well as when calculating the amount of water or broth that will be required. On average, it is 400-450 mg per 30 g of dry mushrooms. You can simplify the task and just add enough so that the mushrooms are completely covered with water.
Experts note one subtlety: porcini mushrooms need to be soaked not in water, but in warm milk. This will give a special unique taste and aroma to the finished dish. However, this rule applies not only to boletus mushrooms, any other mushrooms can be soaked in milk, thereby improving their taste.
There is also an unusual recommendation for soaking mushrooms in olive oil using herbs and spices.
When choosing the classic option, soaking in water, the liquid that remains after this should be drained, and the mushrooms should be placed in a saucepan and cook for 20 minutes to an hour until they sink to the bottom. If after soaking there is nothing superfluous in the form of sand, garbage, and no sediment appears, then on its basis you can prepare a dietary first course or use liquid for juicy mushroom soup.
If you wait until the mushrooms are soaked, there is no time, you can throw the dry product into boiling water for 10 minutes. Drain the water, rinse the mushrooms and use for cooking.
To prepare the soup, it is not necessary to soak the mushrooms, it is enough to take a small handful (with the calculation of the amount of mushrooms for each liter of water) of the dry product and pour it into the pan.
In what dishes can you use
The variety of recipes that use dried mushrooms will allow even the most discerning person to choose a dish to taste. The uniqueness of mushrooms also lies in the fact that they are combined with various groups of products: fermented milk products, cheeses, meat, cereals, nightshades, vegetables. They can be boiled, stewed, fried, marinated, grilled. Whichever method is used, the taste will be memorable.
