With the onset of autumn, mushroom pickers begin to bring home a large number of mushrooms, some of which many dry for the winter. Previously, mushrooms were dried in attics or over stoves - today, microwave ovens can easily solve this problem. To stock up on delicious dried mushrooms for the winter, you need to know a few secrets of cooking them in the microwave.
Drying process
When choosing mushrooms for drying, be sure to pay attention to their integrity, hardness and density. Spoiled and rotten mushrooms are thrown away, and good ones are sorted and cut into several pieces. It is not recommended to wash fresh mushrooms so that they do not become saturated with moisture - it is enough to peel them with a knife and remove dirt (sand, soil and leaves) with a damp sponge or cloth. Then the prepared mushrooms are laid out on a wire rack and placed in the microwave for fifteen to twenty minutes.
The duration of drying mushrooms in the microwave directly depends on its power characteristics.
After the first twenty-minute "session" of drying, you should open the microwave and wait until the moisture disappears. Usually this process takes from ten to twenty minutes, after which the previous drying manipulation is repeated several more times. If the microwave does not fully cope with drying, the mushrooms can be dried in another way - for example, by stringing them on thick threads and hanging them over the stove in a well-ventilated kitchen.
Features of drying in the microwave
Microwaving mushrooms in a standard size is best for small quantities of mushrooms, as it takes a lot of time and patience to dry multiple batches. In addition, it is recommended to lightly dry or dry the mushrooms at room temperature before microwave drying, since under high microwave temperatures, fresh mushrooms will release juice in which they will have to be boiled rather than dried.
It is advisable to dry the mushrooms in the microwave at the lowest power levels so that they do not bake and do not fry.
Dry mushrooms, such as the legs of porcini mushrooms or boletus boletus, lend themselves best to drying in a microwave oven. During the drying process, the mushrooms should be monitored closely, as they can flare up and catch fire. At the end of drying, the mushrooms should be kept in the open air for several minutes, after which they should be placed in linen bags or sterilized closed jars, and the mushrooms should be placed / hung in a well-ventilated dry room. Dried mushrooms should not be stored next to products with a pungent smell, as they are easily impregnated with foreign aromas. If you don't have a microwave, you can use an oven or electric dryer.
