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Boletus mushrooms are included in recipes for many Russian dishes. They are widespread and loved by mushroom pickers, but quite often wormy ones are found among the collected specimens. There is nothing terrible about this, especially if the lesion is small. You can eat wormy boletus, but before preparing it you need to carry out some preparatory measures.
Why do worms appear in boletus?
Strictly speaking, it is not worms that settle inside the mushroom, but the larvae of various flying insects. They emerge from eggs that are laid in the fruiting bodies of female mosquitoes and flies. The growing larvae begin to feed on the pulp of the mushroom, gradually gnawing passages in it, clearly visible on the cut. In this case, the larvae can spread both from above and from below, gradually moving from the cap to the stem or vice versa, since some insects lay eggs in the soil. This process occurs not only with boletus. Almost all mushrooms that are edible or conditionally edible, to one degree or another, may turn out to be wormy, that is, infected with the larvae of certain insects.
Butterflies growing in open areas are a highly visible and therefore very accessible food source, so these mushrooms are almost more likely than all others to become a source of food for insect larvae. The situation gets worse if the weather is dry and hot. Mushrooms grow worse at this time, but insects, on the contrary, become much more numerous. At such a time, the vast majority of butterflies, even of the youngest age, may turn out to be wormy. In wet weather, on the contrary, more mushrooms grow, and insects practically do not fly, so worm-eaters are much less common during such periods.
In addition to the larvae of flying insects, boletus can be affected by slugs - invertebrate gastropods that resemble snails without a shell. This usually happens in wet weather. Slugs also feed on the pulp of mushrooms, often gnawing through the caps, but they do not go deep into the fruiting body and are always outside. These invertebrates do not pose any danger. Simply shake them off, after which the mushrooms can be processed.
Sometimes in boletus you can also find a wireworm, well known to many gardeners - the larva of the click beetle. It is yellowish in color, hard to the touch, quite large in size, its passages inside the fruiting body of the mushroom are a real tunnel. The wireworm usually lives in the soil, feeding on various roots, but often attacks mushrooms. This larva is not poisonous, and after its removal, forest gifts can be safely used for further processing.
Is it possible to eat wormy boletus?
Butterflies belong to edible mushrooms of the II category of nutritional value.This suggests that they have good taste and are a fairly good source of proteins.
With the appearance of an insect larva inside the fruiting body, the mushroom will not cease to be edible, it only loses its nutritional value. The larvae themselves and their metabolic products are not poisonous and do not have any negative effect on the taste or smell of butter. Everyone has happened to accidentally swallow a mosquito or midge in childhood, and this did not lead to any negative consequences. Absolutely the same situation here. Therefore, this is rather a question of aesthetics and the advisability of eating wormy mushrooms in the presence of healthy ones.
When deciding for yourself whether to take wormy boletus or not, you need to decide in advance what they will be used for. Butternuts are perfectly preserved; they can be salted and pickled. However, for this purpose it is better to choose whole caps of young mushrooms that are not affected by worms, since when finished they should look as attractive as possible. It is better to use wormy boletus in dishes that require additional chopping of mushrooms and their good heat treatment. In this case, all negative consequences will be minimized; an accidentally remaining worm will be difficult to identify in the homogeneous mass of the finished dish. And deep heat treatment is guaranteed to destroy all biological traces of its presence inside the fruiting body of the mushroom.
How to remove worms from boletus mushrooms
Butterflies very often grow in large colonies; there can be dozens of specimens in one place. In such cases, the best way to avoid the problem of wormy mushrooms is not to take everything. If there is a sufficient number of butternuts, sorting and culling can be done right on the spot, in the forest. In this case, it is advisable to check each specimen by cutting its cap in half. If a cut reveals many worm holes, and the structure of the flesh of the fruiting body itself rather resembles old cotton wool, then there is no point in taking such a mushroom home for processing. It is better to immediately leave such rotten things in the forest.
At home, before processing mushrooms, you need to check them again for worm spots. Small local lesions can simply be cut out with a knife. If several worm holes are visible on the cut of the cap, and the structure of the cap itself has not lost its density, then such mushrooms can be soaked for several hours in cold salt water. The worms will definitely leave their shelters and float to the surface, after which it will not be difficult to collect them. After this procedure, mushrooms can be processed.
The brown film covering the cap of the butter dish must be removed when using mushrooms in any way, otherwise it will give the finished dish a dark color and a bitter taste. It must be removed before soaking the mushroom in water.A wet oiler is very slippery and will be very difficult to hold in your hands. To clean the cap, it is better to wear rubber gloves, since the film that is removed from the surface of the cap contains a coloring pigment. If you do not use hand protection, your hands will turn dark brown. This paint is quite durable and does not wash off for several days.
What to do with wormy boletus
After sorting and removing the worms, boletus can be used for all the same purposes as regular ones. There are quite a lot of recipes for preparing various dishes with these mushrooms. Here are some names of dishes that can be prepared from them.
- Zrazy with egg and mushrooms.
- Butter fried in sour cream.
- Baked potatoes with mushrooms.
- Mushroom soup.
- Butter stewed with potatoes.
- Butter fried with onions.
- Butter with chicken.
These mushrooms are good as an independent dish; they are often stewed or fried with potatoes in various variations, and used as a filling for pies. You can use them to prepare numerous mushroom appetizers, sauce, and mushroom caviar. You can also use boletus to prepare mushroom soup. However, in this case, it is better to strain the broth, since a worm that accidentally floats up in the plate can suppress your appetite for a long time.
After removing the worms, the boletus can be dried on a wire rack or in the oven. When dried, these mushrooms can be stored for up to one and a half years. Boiled boletus is often frozen and stored as a semi-finished product, later used for frying, stewing or preparing mushroom soup.
Video about some methods of preparing butter:
Conclusion
You can eat wormy boletus, but this must be done after deep processing, which necessarily includes heat treatment. This is absolutely necessary in order to minimize the risk of introducing a parasite or pathogen of any disease into the body. If there are a lot of mushrooms growing, and you can completely do without collecting wormy ones, then you should definitely take advantage of this. There is no need to be greedy and strive to gain as much as possible. Why carry extra weight if you still have to throw away half of it at home when recycling.
