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Winter mushrooms are edible mushrooms from the Ryadovkovy family. They begin to grow from the end of summer, they are harvested in winter, even from under the snow. Winter mushroom has several synonymous names: velvety-footed flammulina and enokitake, or winter mushroom.
Characteristics of the mushroom winter honey
Winter honey mushroom
Flammulina (from Lat. Flammulina velutipes) belongs to the Ryadovkov family. The mushroom of this family is edible and has good taste. Among mushroom pickers, such names are also known - winter mushroom, winter mushroom. The main places of growth are stumps (aspen, poplar, willow), hollows, timber, logs. Grows in small groups or concretions.
External signs of mushrooms:
- the cap has a round, convex shape, the edges are bent, as it grows it becomes flat. The diameter reaches 10 cm. The color of the cap can be orange, yellow, brown with a honey tint;
- the leg reaches 7 cm in length, dense, cylindrical, velvety brown in color, located in the center of the cap;
- the pulp is light, sometimes with a slight yellow tint. It has a pleasant taste, ocher-colored plates grow to it, sometimes they are shortened.
The uniqueness of the velvety-legged colibia lies in the possibility of growth under a large snow cover. Mushrooms of this species are easy to collect during thaws.
Description of the appearance of the mushroom
According to the species characteristics, the caps have a diameter of 2 to 10 cm. They are smooth and slimy to the touch. Mushrooms change color depending on the tree they grow on. They are found even in the city center, on the sides of polluted roads, if there are remains of tree trunks there. Such specimens should be left alone to collect: they contain a large amount of harmful compounds, in particular heavy metal ions. Their use, at best, threatens with serious poisoning. Depending on the place of germination, they are:
- brownish yellow;
- yellow-orange;
- bright yellow with dark blotches;
- dark yellow with light edges.
By the way. The edges of the cap are lighter than its central part.
In young specimens, the cap is convex, with tucked edges; it becomes prostrate during maturation. The plates, like the caps, change appearance, depending on the place of growth and can vary in color from white to reddish-yellow. They can grow to the leg. Their color ranges from white to light yellow. With the growth period, the shade becomes closer to brown. Spores for reproduction are white and different in shape.
The flesh of flammulina is thin, but dense, creamy in color. It tastes good, slightly sour and has a persistent mushroom smell. According to the description, the stem of the mushroom is thin, about 10 cm in length and up to 1 cm in thickness. It has a cylindrical shape, brown color and dense structure. There is no "skirt" (ring) on the leg - the remains of a private veil that covers the hymenophore plates in immature fruiting bodies and creates favorable conditions for the formation of spores.
The fungus is found on dead wood or weakened (damaged) plants. Most often, it grows on moist soils in gardens, squares and forests near rivers, streams, poplars and willows are chosen among tree stumps. Flammulina bears fruit in groups - aggregates.Winter honey agaric is a parasite that parasitizes sick and damaged trees. If the mycelium develops on dead wood, then velvety-footed flammulina will belong to saprophytes.
When collecting winter mushrooms, you must remember that there are false and poisonous mushrooms similar to them. To distinguish a false mushroom and not collect it, you should examine the stem of the fruiting body. There is a light ring on it, and the cap of edible mushrooms is covered with pronounced scales.
Similar species
The genus Flammulina also includes the following types of honey agarics:
- Chased... Inedible, very rare. The growth period falls on August-September. The growth of these mushrooms was recorded in the forests of European countries. In the Tomsk, Moscow, Leningrad regions, mushrooms of this species are also seen.
- Dark... Edible species, in terms of external characteristics, it is very similar to winter honeydew. Breeds on decaying, dead wood.
- Kandol... It was previously considered poisonous, but modern literature indicates that it can be used after boiling. Growing places - deciduous trees.
- Seroplate... Places of mass growth are pine and coniferous trees. It can be harvested from spring to autumn.
- Fatleg... Refers to a universal edible species. It is used in industry. The growth period was recorded from August to September. The difference between this species and winter honey fungus is that it grows on living trees, on soil.
You can also find such mushrooms: meadow, summer (edible) and brick-red, sulfur-yellow (inedible).
Summer mushrooms
As for the summer representatives of the culture we are considering, you can eat them from May to September. The ideal habitat for the species is rotten trees and semi-decayed wood where humidity is high. For example, near streams.
How summer mushroom looks like depends on weather conditions. If dampness prevails in the region and precipitation often falls, the cap of the mushroom darkens from the middle to the edges. In drought conditions, the cap becomes one-color, light brown in color. Spores are brown when light in winter. The older the "individual", the darker its color.
Experienced mushroom pickers advise you to be careful about collecting summer mushrooms, as there is a high probability of confusing them with poisonous brethren. The main rule in this case is not to harvest in a forest with a predominance of conifers, as well as directly on the stumps of resinous crops.
Ecology and growing season
Flammulina is a xylophyte mushroom that grows on dead wood, stumps. It belongs to the environmental group. Flammulina grows especially massively in the period from October to December, as well as in January and February, if there is a thaw. It is very rare to meet him in the summer, in the spring it can be collected in large quantities.
Did you know? In all countries of the world, mushrooms are grown and harvested in the amount of 100 thousand tons per year.
Studies carried out at Moscow State University have confirmed that this species belongs to the first group, which accumulate toxic substances minimally.
The leg of the winter honeydew is unsuitable for consumption due to excessive rigidity and hardness, therefore, when collecting the leg, you can not cut it off
The best recipes
Flammulina is such a delicate productthat experts do not recommend cooking it for more than 10-15 minutes at a high temperature. If the mushrooms will be used not as an independent dish, then add them to the pan to other ingredients no earlier than 15 minutes before the end of the cooking of the latter.
There are many great recipes that use winter honey.
Fried honey mushrooms
Thoroughly wash and dry the mushrooms by discarding them in a colander. Cut into slices or slices.
In a frying pan, heat odorless refined vegetable oil and add the prepared mushrooms, immediately salt and pepper.
Mushrooms tend to absorb, like a sponge, all the smells and tastes, and since flammulina has a rather weak aroma, you should not interrupt it with spices, herbs and onions. If desired, a small amount of onion can be fried separately, chopping it into thin half rings and only at the very end of cooking add it to the browned mushrooms.
How to make delicious crispy pickles for the winter
Mushrooms in sour cream sauce
Fried honey mushrooms can make an excellent independent dish or a hot snack, if you grind them a little in sour cream and onion or creamy sauce.
Add 30 grams of butter and a flat teaspoon of flour to the onions fried in a pan. When the flour turns golden, add fat sour cream or cream.
As soon as the mass boils down a little and thickens, pour the pre-fried mushrooms into it and simmer everything for a few minutes.
Nutritional quality, toxicity and medicinal properties
Due to the high content of amino acids and protein (28-33%), this mushroom has exceptional benefits compared to some berries, vegetables, and fruits. Flammulina contains such trace elements: potassium, copper, phosphorus, zinc.
Nutritional value per 100 g:
- Calories: 22 kcal;
- proteins: 2.2 g;
- fat: 1.2 g;
- carbohydrates: 0.5 g.
Did you know? Only 10 people began to actively grow and collect winter mushrooms.
–
15 years ago.
Winter mushroom can be eaten, this species is especially popular in Asian countries.... It tolerates frost well, so it can be collected and used frozen, thawed. In the kitchen, they use fresh mushrooms, pre-boiled for 20 minutes. They can be salted, pickled, stewed. After cooking, the outer shell becomes slippery.
The main and main healing property is that the winter mushroom prevents the appearance and development of cancer cells.... This product lowers blood cholesterol levels, prevents the development of atherosclerosis. It can be safely equated with milk, beef. In order for all the beneficial substances to be preserved, it is recommended to use the mushroom in salted and dried form, without subjecting it to heat treatment.
In the Japanese literature, you can find an interesting fact that if you consume 50-100 g of honey agaric a day, you can avoid the formation of cancer cells. Flammulina extract is used in cosmetology.
Medicinal properties of autumn mushrooms
In oriental medicine, preparations based on Flammulina velvety-leg are used for the treatment and prevention of tumors and neoplasms (both benign and malignant).
The composition of these mushrooms includes flammulin (hence the second name for winter honey agarics), which is actively used in the fight against sarcoma. They are used in the treatment of liver diseases, stomach and intestinal ulcers. Also, the mushroom is used to strengthen the tone of the body, with vitamin deficiency and general malaise. He helps men to deal with potency problems.
When and how is it harvested?
The harvesting season lasts from autumn to spring. You can meet winter mushrooms in large groups. Very often they grow together in a kind of "bouquets". From mature representatives, you only need to take a hat. In young mushrooms, you need to cut off the darkened part of the leg. They are collected during the cold period (from December to March). Experienced gardeners recommend using a basket during gathering, as mushrooms in a bag can be squeezed, losing their shape... It is necessary to collect honey mushrooms in ecological places, forests, plantings, away from enterprises, factories, plants. This is due to the ability of fungi to accumulate toxic, harmful substances from the environment.
What else is prepared from flammulina
Light vegetarian soups with winter mushrooms are very tasty.For the preparation of this dish, only the first mushroom broth is used, since for the second, the flesh of flammulina is too tender and unsaturated. And so that the quality of the soup does not suffer, its base must be filtered through a double layer of gauze after the mushrooms are ready. The extracted mushrooms must be added back to the soup at the very end of cookingso that the potatoes have time to cook. The finished dish will only benefit if you add fresh chopped herbs to it (separately in each plate).
The list of delicious winter mushroom dishes does not end there, because flammulina is perfect for making a fragrant omelet, lean borscht with prunes, fried and boiled potatoes and many other recipes. In addition, this type of honey agaric is often used in pickles and marinades.
Contraindications and possible harm
Winter honey mushroom is contraindicated for pregnant women, women during breastfeeding, children under the age of 10... It is not recommended to use it for people suffering from diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, liver, kidneys.
The winter fungus can be harmful by parasitizing on the fruit trees of your backyard farm. It can grow on the affected areas of the tree, cut trees. To prevent this process, areas need to be treated with oil paint.
Important! Despite the fact that winter honeydew is an edible species, unstable toxins are fixed in its composition. They are rendered harmless during heat treatment.
Winter honey mushroom is a universal mushroom used in cooking, medicine, pharmacology. Its beneficial properties make this product very popular among mushroom pickers.
Is it possible to grow winter mushrooms at home
Flammulin ranks third in the world in terms of industrial production. This mushroom has been successfully cultivated for a long time in Southeast Asia, for example, in Japan and South Korea.
The technology for growing winter mushrooms is quite simple. Moreover, mushrooms can be grown not only on the street, but also at home. In the first case, tree stumps are used for this, in the second - jars with a nutrient substrate. Below is a photo of winter mushrooms on a prepared stump.
The easiest way to breed flammulina is to use a ready-made mycelium. It can be purchased at specialty stores or ordered by mail. Any dead or diseased wood with a moisture content of at least 70% is suitable for growing mushrooms on the street. Usually, hardwood blocks are used for this, for example, birch logs.
It is best to plant flammulina in the second half of spring. Infected logs are placed in a small pile, and after a few months, after germination of the mycelium, they are dug in vertically in a shady place. Under favorable conditions, the first harvest of mushrooms can be harvested in the fall.
To breed flammulina velvety-footed, you can also use the old method, simply rubbing a cut of a prepared tree with a cap of an adult mushroom. This procedure is done in September, and the first wave of the harvest can be expected in the spring. Frosts will not affect the fruiting bodies, having thawed, they will continue to grow actively. In this case, their taste will not deteriorate.
When grown on soft wood, mycelium fruiting period is 3-4 years, on hard wood - up to 7 years. Mushrooms can be grown on natural stumps for up to 10 years. In total, the mass of the fruit bodies obtained can be 10–15% of the initial mass of the log.
The second method allows you to grow Flammulina at home in a glass jar. To do this, you will need to fill it with a nutrient substrate, which includes:
- hardwood sawdust;
- buckwheat husk;
- bran;
- sunflower seed husk;
- brewer's grains;
- corn cobs.
Usually, the substrate is laid in one and a half to two liter jars for half the volume and closed with lids in which holes with a diameter of 2 cm are cut.Then they are placed in a pot of boiling water and sterilized over a fire for 1.5–2 hours. The sterilization process is repeated every other day. Then the jars are cooled to room temperature and the mycelium is planted.
Important! It is only necessary to work with mycelium with clean hands.
Several pieces of mushroom are placed in each jar and removed to a warm, dark place. After 2–4 weeks, the mycelium will appear, after which the cans can be rearranged on the windowsill. A rim made of thick cardboard 8–10 cm wide is put on the neck of the jar, which will hold the fruit bodies in an upright position.
Periodically, the rim and caps of the mushrooms need to be moistened with water using a spray bottle. As soon as the mushrooms appear above the rim, it must be removed and the caps must be cut off. After collecting the mushrooms, the jars are again removed to a dark place. After 10-14 days, the caps will reappear.
Important! The optimum temperature for mushroom growth is 22-24 degrees Celsius.
Bonus: Marinade for mushrooms
I would also like to say that you can also preserve mushrooms using a universal marinade, which is suitable for absolutely all varieties of mushrooms (chanterelles, boletus, white, etc.).
It will be without vinegar, but with citric acid. In this short video there are some little tricks in general about cooking mushrooms, I recommend watching and remembering all the details well for yourself:
That's all, let's write our comments below to make a small forum, so that everyone is interested in coming in and reading. Join me in a group in contact. And see you soon. All good mushroom picking and great mood!
P.S Yesterday I was only in the forest picking mushrooms, wow, this is an exciting activity. You know how beautiful it is! So clean and fresh! Singing birds and a light breeze, what a beautiful Russian nature we have, and what landscapes, well, just lovely! Here's my mini-report of photos in nature.
Well, we will try to help you with this. This section contains the most sensible recipes for cooking honey agarics for the winter, with colorful step-by-step photographs and detailed instructions. Make blanks with pleasure!
Pickled mushrooms of instant preparation in 15 minutes
For pickling according to this recipe, it is best to take young and fresh mushrooms. This recipe is not only simple and tasty, it is also very quick. It will be possible to eat pickled mushrooms, of course, not straight away right away, but in the morning or in the evening it is quite possible. Otherwise, erase the recipe and you yourself will understand everything.
Ingredients.
Honey mushrooms 1 kg. Lavrushka 2 leaves. Table vinegar 2 tbsp. spoons Garlic 3 cloves Black peppercorns 3-5 pcs. Salt 1 tbsp. spoon Water 1 liter
Cooking process.
Sort the mushrooms, peel and rinse well several times. Put a glass of water in a saucepan and cook after boiling for 25-30 minutes. We must remove the foam that appears.
Drain the first water, rinse the mushrooms, put the remaining moisture in a sieve to glass.
We put the mushrooms in a saucepan again, fill them with 1 liter of water, add the rest of the ingredients and put them on the stove.
The second time we cook for 15 minutes after the mass has boiled. Next, you can put the mushrooms in sterile jars, or you can leave it right in the same saucepan for 12 hours.
After 12 hours, you can treat yourself to delicious pickled mushrooms. Bon Appetit.
Growing Flammulina
Flammulina is edible and, according to many, delicious. In Japan, it is grown commercially and sold. According to scientists, it has anti-cancer properties. Scientifically confirmed the antiviral activity of the substances contained in the winter mushroom, as well as the presence of many vitamins necessary for the human body.
Gardening enthusiasts can try growing the mushroom on their own. Specially prepared pieces of wood and nutritious mixtures will serve as a "bed" here. Flammulin does not disdain substrates based on bran, sunflower husk, sawdust, buckwheat husk, ground corn cobs.The substrate is mixed with gypsum and subjected to heat treatment, after which it is packaged in sterile bags, at the same time infecting with mycelium - the very mycelium that will give rise to a new crop. The mycelium of flammulina can be purchased in the same place where the mycelium of oyster mushrooms and mushrooms is sold, who is looking for - he will always find.
With strict adherence to the technology, and it implies constant control over humidity and a tough temperature regime, after 45 days you can harvest the first crop! Grown "in captivity" mushrooms are similar to forest ones, only slightly less intensely colored. The taste does not suffer from this, the mushroom is just as useful. With proper care of the substrate and timely removal of the resulting "bouquets", you can count on two or even three waves of fruiting. Comparison with a bouquet is quite justified - many dozens of mushrooms of different sizes grow from one base. When grown on an industrial scale, for every three liters of nutrient substrate, up to one and a half kilograms of premium mushrooms are obtained!
Flammulina, both grown and harvested in the forest, can be prepared in any way possible - it is boiled, fried, pickled. Experts recommend preparing them for it, the so-called mushroom caviar, for which pre-boiled mushrooms are passed through a meat grinder, fried onions and fresh green onions, peppers, vegetable oil are added. Bon Appetit!
A wonderful decoration for the New Year's table, isn't it? But not everyone will be able to believe that you collected these mushrooms in the forest yourself a few days ago ...
Good luck and new amazing discoveries!
Dmitry Pesochinsky Photo by the author
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Tags: mushrooms winter
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