Home cooks consider mushroom dishes to be very useful and necessary. Of the many varieties of mushrooms, they have given pride of place to oyster mushrooms for their versatility. Oyster mushrooms, subject to any type of processing, fit perfectly into the diet. Young people are preferred because the older ones are tougher and less tasty. You can cook different dishes from oyster mushrooms:
- stewed;
- fried;
- boiled;
- baked;
- fermented, salted and pickled.
Oyster mushrooms are amazing in salads, fillings and first courses.
To prepare mushrooms for the winter, housewives choose the freezing method. This is the fastest and easiest way, but it has its own subtleties. How to freeze oyster mushrooms to maximize their nutritional value?
Preliminary preparation - useful tips
The recipe for the freezing process itself is simple and straightforward. But choosing raw mushrooms requires care. What criteria must be met in order for the freezing to be successful? First of all, you need to pay attention to the appearance:
- Freshness. Any signs of spoilage, decay, or mold should result in refusal to freeze such specimens.
- Integrity. Severe damage, faults with blackness are also criteria for rejection.
- Smell. A specific aroma or small cracks on the edges of the caps signal that the product is not the first freshness.
- Leg length. This part is useless, so a good quality mushroom has a short stem.
- Age. An overgrown product is difficult to visually identify. For accuracy, the oyster mushrooms break off a piece of the cap and look at the fracture line. It should be white, juicy and soft.
For freezing, we select only fresh, firm, undamaged and dense mushrooms.
If you need to wait with freezing, then you need to store them in a cool place. It is not recommended to wash or cut the product before freezing.
Freezing process at home
Mushrooms are frozen at home in two types - boiled and raw. Fresh fruits retain more nutrients than heat-treated ones. Therefore, freezing raw mushrooms for the winter is preferable for many housewives.
How to freeze fresh oyster mushrooms:
- We conduct a thorough inspection of purchased mushrooms. How to do it correctly? It is necessary to mercilessly remove from the total mass of spoiled, rotten or damaged specimens. Do not cut off the rotten part, hoping that freezing will save the mushrooms from rotting. After defrosting, such fruits will not have a very pleasant taste.
- Selected specimens are cleaned under running water. They do this quickly, because the mushrooms are quickly saturated with moisture. They also cannot be soaked. In the freezer, the water will turn into ice and break the entire structure of the mushroom.
- Now the total amount is divided into portions and placed in a container for freezing. Plastic containers and even cling film will do. This technique allows you not to defrost the entire amount at once, but to take it in portions.
You can freeze mushrooms with preliminary heat treatment. For this, the product is washed, cleaned of dirt and placed in boiling water. Cook for 15 minutes. The water is salted 5 minutes after the oyster mushrooms boil. Then the product is laid out on a board and the excess liquid is allowed to drain off. Next, the oyster mushrooms are divided into portions and sent to the freezer.
Can already cooked mushrooms be frozen? After thawing, a completely finished product will lose some of its nutritional properties, but alternative methods exist:
- Dried. Cut the washed mushrooms and dry them in the oven. After cooling down, send in portions to the freezer. Defrost slowly!
- In the broth. Put the package in the container more tightly. Place boiled mushrooms in it and pour broth over it. Freeze in the refrigerator, then tie the bag tightly when frozen.
- Fried. Fry oyster mushrooms in butter or vegetable oil, and place in the freezer. This type is used primarily. Fried oyster mushrooms do not store for a long time!
Why can oyster mushrooms taste bitter after defrosting? It happens sometimes. Most likely, they were stored for a long time. You need to use frozen mushrooms within 3-4 months. Remove bitterness by rinsing and adding spices during cooking.
Properly frozen oyster mushrooms will help out the hostess more than once in the winter months, so please yourself with a useful preparation.
