How to safely and tasty pickle boletus for the winter
In terms of nutritional value, aspen mushrooms are only slightly inferior to the kings of mushrooms – white, milk mushrooms and mushrooms, and salted mushrooms on the winter table are a welcome delicacy. To get it, you need to learn how to pickle aspen mushrooms for the winter. And first, let’s make sure that we know exactly what a boletus looks like..
Do not use mushrooms that differ from the description. Eating unfamiliar mushrooms can lead to severe poisoning..
See also the article: how to salt lard in brine?
How to distinguish boletus from other mushrooms
In young boletuses, the hat looks like a cap tightly put on the leg, in the old one it straightens out and looks like an umbrella. The hat is red or red-orange in color, smooth, slightly velvety. The stem is high, covered with grayish scales, slightly fibrous and hollow inside. The pulp of the mushroom is dense, white, without bitterness. Turns blue at the break. Aspen mushrooms appear in early summer and grow until the end of September. Prefer deciduous and mixed forests, aspen groves.
How to prepare mushrooms for pickling
For salting boletus, take only young specimens, it is better to boil or fry the older ones.
The collected mushrooms are sorted, cleaned of adhering debris, the root part is cut off and rotten and wormy places are cut out. Then they are transferred to a colander and thoroughly rinsed under running cold water. Allow the water to drain and lay out on a towel to dry. While the mushrooms are drying, it’s time to start preparing dishes for salting..
For salting, it is better to take one type of mushroom, without mixing it with others. After picking, mushrooms cannot be stored, they must be processed on the same day..
The best dishes for salting mushrooms is an oak tub, but any glass or enamel container is also suitable – jars, buckets, pots. Before salting, the dishes are thoroughly washed and poured over with boiling water. Now you need to prepare the spices. For ten kilograms of boletus we need:
- bay leaf – 20 grams,
- coarse salt, not iodized – 500 grams,
- allspice – 6-8 grams.
Boletus can also be salted with garlic, dill seed, black peppercorns, black currant and oak leaves.
How to salt boletus
To properly salt the boletus for the winter, you need to know how they will be stored..
If the products are stored in a cellar at a temperature of about +5 degrees, 50 grams of salt is put on one kilogram of mushrooms. For storage in an apartment, the salt rate is doubled.
Prepared mushrooms are boiled for 15 minutes in salted water, washed in cold water and dried.
At the bottom of the dishes, mushrooms and spices are laid in layers, alternating them. Put spices in the last layer, cover the entire surface with a linen napkin and put a circle with oppression on top. Mushrooms should be kept under oppression at all times. If the brine does not appear over the oppression within two days, the load should be increased. After about a month, the boletus is ready to eat..
Mushrooms are served on the table, mixed with chopped onions, fresh parsley, dill. You can pour over the dish with vegetable oil or season with sour cream.
As we can see, it is not difficult to pickle aspen mushrooms for the winter, their collection and cleaning will take much more time. But the results will surely delight you and your household with a delicious and aromatic dish..
