Content
You can store honey mushrooms in the refrigerator for a long time after cooking and heat treatment. Fresh mushrooms, only collected in the forest, are processed into canned, dried or frozen preparations as quickly as possible. The mushroom harvest must not only be harvested, but also properly preserved.
Is it possible to store honey mushrooms in the refrigerator?
In a city apartment there is no cellar where mushrooms preserved in marinade or brine can be stored for a long time, almost until the next harvest. Therefore, a refrigerator is used to store honey mushrooms.
Pickled and salted mushrooms can be stored at room temperature in the pantry. The opened jar of salted honey mushrooms must be immediately placed in the refrigerator, covered on top with a clean cotton cloth soaked in vodka to prevent molding.
Everyone loves marinated and fried honey mushrooms, as well as mushroom caviar. But there are many more dishes from them. Freezing will help solve the problem of how to properly preserve them in winter and use them in cooking.In the freezer you can store boiled or fried semi-finished products, packaged in small portions for single use. Fresh honey mushrooms are also frozen.
How to store honey mushrooms after collection
After a successful trip to the forest for a “silent hunt”, the most important thing begins. You should not try to preserve honey mushrooms for a day; you need to process them as quickly as possible. They easily become moldy and accumulate dangerous toxins.
Upon arrival from the forest, it is better to immediately take care of the harvest. First, remove twigs and debris and wash. Small, young specimens are especially good; they are suitable for pickling and other preparations. They are washed in cold water several times. Then put it in a large saucepan with hot water and cook for 3-5 minutes. During heat treatment, the product will significantly decrease in size; it is a ready-made semi-finished product. This way they will take up much less space in the freezer.
It is not necessary to remove the foam during boiling, since the cooked mushrooms are placed in a colander and washed again with cold water. When the water has drained, they are packaged in plastic bags, so that one frozen portion can be used at once.
How to store processed honey mushrooms
Fresh mushrooms are 90% water. They are low in carbohydrates and fats, but also have little protein, contrary to popular belief, so they cannot replace meat in the daily diet. Honey mushrooms are considered conditionally edible; they are eaten only after heat treatment.
100 g of boiled honey mushrooms contains about 30 kcal. However, it is worth adding butter with potatoes, and the nutritional value of such a dish will increase many times over. Mushrooms contain various vitamins - C, B, PP and minerals: potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, which are necessary for a person to function normally.
Heat-treated mushrooms - fried or boiled - can be stored in the refrigerator or freezer. The choice of storage location depends on the desired time frame. At -18°C, such a product will safely last 12 months from the date of freezing. Salted and pickled honey mushrooms, which have been pre-cooked and filled with brine or marinade, are stored at room temperature, in a dark, cool pantry.
According to GOST, canned mushrooms prepared in compliance with temperature conditions and all sanitary standards are stored for no more than two years at +25°C. And in a basement or refrigerator, where there is no more than +6°C, you can keep such preservation for three years.
How many days can honey mushrooms be stored?
The shelf life of honey mushrooms after collection and processing depends on the conditions, place and purpose of use. The dried product lasts the longest, but is most often salted, fried or boiled.
A dish of boiled or fried mushrooms, prepared with potatoes or other vegetables, should not be stored without refrigeration for more than one day. Opened jars of pickles are stored in the refrigerator for no more than 2 days.
How long can honey mushrooms be stored after collection?
After collection, mushrooms are immediately washed and processed. Long-term storage of picked honey mushrooms is dangerous; its period should not exceed five to six hours. After this, they become moldy and lose their aroma, taste and benefits. If you don’t have the strength or desire to tinker with the harvest for a long time, you can simply fill it with water and put it under pressure.When the initial fermentation process has passed and they have decreased in size, wash them thoroughly, fill them with clean brine, and put them under pressure.
Even in the refrigerator, collected fresh honey mushrooms cannot be stored for longer than 5-6 hours. The appearance of mold will make them unsuitable for food, and preservation can cause poisoning. Therefore, you need to clean the mushrooms from debris, package them in bags, and put them in the freezer.
How long can boiled mushrooms be stored?
Boiled honey mushrooms, doused with marinade or brine, can be stored in tightly sealed sterile jars and frozen. In the latter case, it is convenient to use a freezer designed for freezing vegetables, berries, fruits and other products. The refrigerator freezer will not fit all the supplies, and maintaining a temperature of -18°C throughout the year is not always possible.
When properly frozen, boiled mushrooms are placed in bags in small portions so that they freeze as quickly as possible. They must first be cooled, dried in a colander, and quickly packaged. You cannot re-freeze such a preparation; you need to eat it all at once or store the boiled honey mushrooms in the refrigerator until the evening.
How long can pickled mushrooms be stored?
Salted mushrooms are healthier than pickled ones. During the salting process, protein is destroyed and it becomes more easily digestible. The pickled product is less digestible; it contains acetic acid and a lot of flavorings and spices.
Pickled honey mushrooms have a fairly long shelf life, it all depends on compliance with the canning technology, temperature and humidity in the storage. Humidity should not exceed 75%, if the air temperature is from 0 to +6 °C, industrially pickled honey mushrooms can be stored for three years.
How long can you store fried honey mushrooms?
Fried honey mushrooms for the dinner table can be stored for no more than a day without refrigeration. If the mushrooms are placed in sterilized jars and filled with calcined vegetable oil, such a preparation can stand in the pantry for more than 6 months. Fried frozen honey mushrooms can be stored for the longest time - about 1 year.
Useful tips
Wild mushrooms can be beneficial if collected from an ecologically clean area and properly prepared. In some regions of Russia, collecting wild mushrooms is not recommended due to unfavorable environmental conditions. These are areas neighboring Belarus and Kazakhstan, where the content of radioactive products in the soil exceeds the norm.
You should always remember that home-canned mushrooms are potentially dangerous. During this process, honey mushrooms that are poorly cleared from the soil can retain botulism spores, which are not destroyed by ordinary boiling. Only autoclaving in industrial conditions can destroy a dangerous infection.
It is easy to get poisoned by canned mushrooms bought secondhand at the market. The first signs of poisoning appear in the form of severe pain in the stomach, and breathing may be impaired. If you consume such canned food contaminated with botulism, a person can easily die. A bulging lid on a jar is not an indicator of spoilage; sometimes dangerous processes occur unnoticed.Therefore, you cannot buy canned honey mushrooms on the market, prepared in various ways for long-term storage.
For preservation, it is better to use plastic lids. Unlike dense tin ones, they allow air to pass through slightly and prevent botulism from developing in canned mushrooms. At the same time, the plastic lids must be tight enough to protect the contents of the jar from evaporation of the brine and the appearance of mold.
Some mushrooms are incompatible with alcohol, for example, common oak. It contains substances that under normal conditions are not absorbed in the human intestine, but when interacting with alcohol, they easily penetrate the bloodstream and lead to serious poisoning.
Conclusion
You can store honey mushrooms in the refrigerator after marinating for a long time. If you open a can of preserved food, its shelf life is reduced to two to three days. Frozen mushrooms also retain their nutritional value for a long time. Honey mushrooms are dried very rarely, since in this form they lose their characteristic mushroom aroma and become tasteless after cooking. You can keep fried and boiled honey mushrooms fresh for 3 days in the refrigerator at a temperature of 0...+5 °C. This is the maximum period for safe use of the product.
